Spider Wolf
I first started looking at animal hybrids designed by other people. As the assignment was to model something cute and I think these weird animal hybrids are adorable.
Originally I was going to make a spider rat, but then I saw these spider wolves in a movie and thought they where the most adorable things in the world. I redesigned them to fit my preferences. I like the idea of the wolf having a huge mane to separate the body from the head. I also really wanted to give the spider wolf a huge spider butt as a tail.
Below are my designs for the spiderwolf:
As you can see in the image I did a few sketches for my design. showing the wolf in different poses and at different angles to make sure I could model it to the best of my ability.
I then made the sketches on my computer to model on top of. I highlighted the main shapes that I would need to make the modeling process easier.
I then loaded this image into sculptris and began modeling. One the model was done I brought it into Maya to Retopologise.
This is what my model look like when I first put it into maya. I then began the retopology.
Once the Retopology was complete I began rigging my model.
As my model had so many legs and limbs the rigging was quite complicated. I named all the bones so I wouldn’t get confusing when adding the skin weights and posing my model. I also didn’t make controllers for every joint seeing as i was only going to be posing the model and not actually animating it.
Once everything was named and I bound the joints to the skin I began painting my skin weights. I had some issues but eventually sorted out a process. I locked every joint after painting it as to not let it effect the other joints skinweights.
The next thing I did was texture my model. I used substance painter for this. Of course in order to texture my model I had to unwrap it first. I did this right after the retopology was completed. Although I did have some issues with getting my substance painter to work, due to some software issues I eventually was able to find a way around it by borrowing somebody else’s login.
Reflection
I really enjoyed this assignment although I thing my time management throughout this entire project was terrible. I took on too many responsibilities with this my other assignments and my jobs. I think this was my biggest downfall this year. I did enjoy designing this adorable model I do wish I gave myself more time to make it better and fully dedicate myself to it. I am not overly thrilled with the outcome and will be redoing it for myself over the summer. I think I learned a lot across this year and have a lot more tools in which I can use to improve my modelling. Skin weights where my biggest enemy this year to the point where posing my character more than just tilting the head and moving one leg look me way too long. I couldn’t in the end achieve the pose I wanted for the character as I did lose my battle with the skin weights. I think over the summer I will practice this and also will be quitting one of my jobs so that I have more time next year to fully dedicate myself to projects.