I've spent a bit of time playing around with what sort of definition I'd like in his face and body, as I've mentioned before I'm trying to get an alternate dragon design. So instead of covering him in scales I'll cover him mostly in thick leathery skin and make his chest almost exoskeletal, and have the crystal in the centre of his chest, like a glowing heart.

His eyebrows feel a bit too low to me, and his nostrils could also do with a bit more definition.

I'm trying to get him to look lean and strong so I've mapped in some muscles, they are a bit too defined at the moment (he feels a bit like a body building dragon!) but I can tone them down using the layer opacity feature.

Dragon Build Cont...

At the moment I'm trying to get the shape of the body and face to fit well together. I've been testing out whether  or not to add little spikes in various places on his face, I'm not really too happy about the result however. It feels like he has jewelry across his eyebrows which is not the look that I'm going for! 

I've also spent a while shaping his teeth, I wasted a lot of time trying to get the gums in the right position and then add the teeth. I then realised that dragons don't have gums...

Getting the shape of his chest has been a bit of a challenge as It kind of feels like a human torso. However I did not want to go for a traditional dragon shaped torso, so I'll play around with it and see what I can do.

Dragon Build - Part 2

Yesterday I finished Unwrapping and moved on to sculpting the surface detail.

I unwrapped the UV's using Roadkill as it is a very user friendly piece of software, and enabled to get the job done rather swiftly. Although it has it's quirky moments and the navigation can be irritating at times.

UV Layout

Originally I was going to have a crystal that protruded quite far from his chest, but after giving it some thought I decided I will have it in chest, like a heart. I will have it glowing yellow/orange, and veins will visible originating from the crystal glowing the same colour.

Dragon Build - Part 1

Let me start with a confession, as truth is the core of any meaningful relationship.  

I am in the early stages of production for the cinematic that myself and two classmates are co-directing. "Production stage?!" I hear you ask, yes, the pre-production is an ancient relic in my minds eye. On hindsight it probably would have been valuable to have blogged my progress with regards to the pre-production...but choices were made and actions taken which ultimately lead me to the position that I now find myself in.

However there is a saying which goes "better late than never", and if there ever was a time that I would be grateful for that saying to exist, it would be now.

So to get up to date, I am designing, building and rigging the dragon and barbarian which will feature in the cinematic I am co-directing. I will also be lighting all the scenes and dabble in FX.

Dragon Model Sheet

I am currently unwrapping the dragon using Roadkill, from there I will go into the surface detail (using ZBrush) and then rig it using 'The Set-up Machine' and 'The Face Machine'.  

A few pics from todays modelling, I build a set of teeth in Maya and shaped then in ZBrush, I also used the same process for fitting the eye.