Furry Business

One of the things I've been working on all week is getting familiar with the fur tool in Maya. I have it figured out now, expect for the lighting and rendering part, which I will get into later.
The body is unwrapped and ready for texturing and some fur!

But before I start putting a lot of work into any of that I always like doing a bit of research and really visualizing exactly how I want the fur to look.

I'm going to do a combination of base painting on the model and adding fur on top. The fur is pretty heavy in terms of rendering time and I haven't even added anything so I think having a mixture of both will help with that.

Going through some of the different fur presets in Maya I realized I really liked the Squirrel fur. I already know I want the body to have a brownish red look with a bit of pattern.

I looked up a few images and really liked this:




I love the color and this is a really good reference in terms of how the fur lays, length and overall look and texture.

I'm not sure about the fuzzy tail but it is something I didn't think about. I'll just have to try it on my model and see.



Patterns on the body is another thing I definitely want. I have in mind something very simple like just three black lines going down his back, but I still looked through a few other options.

These are some of the patterns I've looked up. Although interesting still not what I was looking for. I realized the closest animal print to what I had in mind was a skunk!

I'm glad I looked it up because there's a lot more details to it than I recall. I like the way the stripe starts at the head then splits and continues onto the tail, so that is something worth taking into consideration when I do my fur!

3d Model

This is the Pugly model I've worked on.

Wouldn't say its the best thing I've ever modeled, but its practice!

I'm a little worried about the super hard edges, but for now I like it. I definitely want to have that contrast between soft and hard edges and try and mimic the edges of my drawing as much as I can.
The difference is that I added a mouth. There might be a few more embellishments, but I am really trying hard to keep things to a minimum and just keep going with all this.
I'm looking at this now and going there's still more I can work on!
It's never over!!! aahhh

Pugly

Pugly!

The name of my first creature to come to life! He is somewhat like a dog, will be furry, cute, even barks but the rest of his body is yea...

Sadly I don't have a scanner at home so I've had to photograph the drawings and its not the same quality : (

Sketches

First step in starting this process was to resurrect a few old sketches. I've drawn a lot of these characters years ago, doodling in the midst of classes. I always had the hopes of expanding on them, and what's a better time than now?


Although I have much gnarlier and more intricate sketches, I'm sticking with the simple looking ones. I don't want to spend too much time on details, and really just want to get this project going faster.
I also want to stick with the theme of "cute creepsters."
Although seemingly cute they have a darker creepy side to them too.

Inspired

So it hasn't been an easy year. After many accomplishments, this year has been like a failure for me.

I had the wrong job for too long, and when I did get a project that I was better suited for, I was not challenged in the right way.

My professional skills have possibly suffered and certainly haven't improved.

Emotionally, its definitely been a trying year and I've had much to over come and still continue to battle.

Which skill set will matter more in the end , who knows?

But for now I have to take charge a bit and try and recover.

I hindered myself a bit this year by trying to finish my film, but the chaos in my life has made it impossible for me to focus on such a huge and ambitious task. I have to let go of that for now, until the time is right, and start smaller manageable projects that I can accomplish and benefit from instead.

So this is what I am trying to do now!

I hope to push my self and most importantly stay focused !