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Behkrit of the Seelie-Navih Fey (Now with Massive Walk-Through)

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#81

Beautiful Lonnie…I particularly like the material appearance on the lower legs…
:+1: :+1: :+1: :sunglasses: :+1: :+1: :+1:

#82

I’ve been blown away by the project with every step, but you’ve ramped things up something fierce with this post. You’ve been working on it for a long, long time, and the care is obvious. Every detail is perfect, and believable. Super work!

#83

The Seelie-Navih Fey are a proud tribe of Seelie entrusted with the protection of the curtain realm…a cooridor of sorts that seperates the realm of the Fey from that of our own mortal realm. To this end they have magically altered and domesticated numerous beasts including the voracious and nearly unstoppable Rhemorhaz or Behkrit as they are known in the language of the Fey. Together the Seelie and their watchdogs patrol the borders of the curtain realm always on guard against the encroaching desires of the darker creatures of Fey…the Goblins and Trolls and most of all the devilishly mischievious Gremlins who would like nothing better than to have free reign upon the mortal world…

Here is the final image (I believe) although it is possible I may tweak it slightly in the coming days but I believe it is now “done”. I will post the full process/walkthrough shortly- it is going to take a while to put all those pieces together in one document (I believe there are around 40+ objects). I will share some insights with the walkthrough as well. The Fairies in the foreground and the Gremlins in the background are imported Poser Daz3D figures. The lizard was made in ZBrush.

EDIT: I made a small update to the image.

#84

A supremely well done image.

#85

:eek: :eek: Really beautifull, Mentat :eek: :eek:

stargo

#86

Looks kinda like my old lady…on a good day. Great Job!!!

#87

way ta’ go Lonnie…I hope you are as happy with the end product as I personally am viewing this wonderfully crafted piece. Great job buddy :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: And thank you for sharing the insight into the creation and upcoming walkthru…that is most extremely gracious of you :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:

#88

C’mon people! let’s put a few more pages on this huge thread…this pic definately deserves it. great job, Mentat…this guy’s really cool. i love all the fairies and gremlins and everything. those big double mushroom things are really cool. this came out looking really good.

josh

#89

i still really do like the grass :slight_smile:

#90

Mentat, you have really out done yourself with this image, it’s absolutley brilliant. :sunglasses: :+1: :sunglasses:

#91

Beautiful job, Lonnie, and I am anticipating the germination of inspiration from a detailed trip through its creation…!
:+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:

#92

Please forgive the enormity of this post. I am sure the images will be bumped soon enough so please bare with me. Hopefully a few people my walk away with a little insight and maybe even a smattering of inspiration.

This proved to be my most ambitious and challenging project yet. In all it took me probably 20+ hours to complete. Many times I only had a half-hour here and there to work on it and I suffered from boredom, which is why it took so long to complete. Here is a breakdown of the basic elements:

9 Layers
8 Materials
3 Lights
40+ objects
Fog and Render Depth were selected in the Render panel

I shall begin with the terrain. It was created in three separate layers. The first layer was the foreground terrain. Layer 2 contained the background terrain and layer 3 contained an intermediary rock configuration. The terrains were created from Plane3D’s. They were put into position and rotated then I created the raised/recessed features and added the bump noise. The rocks were created in Bryce 5 as plain mountains and imported as objects. They deform easily within Zbrush and with a large brush size and low ZADD/ZSUB settings I was able to get the smooth facings created. All the terrains were filled with a base color then dropped to the workspace. I completed the color work from that point. The background sky was created on another layer with an alpha brush in the form of a large dot pattern. I initially used an RGB setting of 4 and a ZADD of 2 and painted in the sky. Afterwards I turned off ZADD and continued to color the sky.

Next I created the Mushroom layer. The large two-tiered shrooms were created from SWEEP-PROFILES with the profile drawn so as to close the tops and bottoms. The inspiration for the shrooms came from Morrowind (an RPG game I recently bought for my PC). The smaller shrooms were created in a similar manner. When forming them I used symmetrical editing with radial editing. Once they were in the form I desired I turned off symmetry and began to push and pull them out of symmetry into the shape you now see. I applied a base color and again dropped them to the workspace and completed the color work. That is why some of the color images below seem to be missing color in some areas- those areas were covered by the terrain. I kept the shroom layer, as the active layer while the terrain layers remained visible. That way I could paint the shrooms in relation to the terrain without worrying about painting over the terrain. Ironically many of the smaller shrooms are not visible in the final image due to the fact that the creature obstructs the view.

Next came the building of the Rhemorhaz. The head was created from a 3D sphere as was the abdomen and the mandibles. The long trunk-like thorax was created from multimarkered spheres, as were the legs. I only needed to create one leg and then duplicate it to get seven more. However as I worked on it I decided it needed two different looking legs…one for the front legs, which would be used as weapons, and another for the remaining legs. Thus another leg type was born. I used the SphericalBlend material for the entire creature. One note about this material.: Glen had shown how to adjust the material to get smaller scales and thus paint subsequently smaller scale areas into the model. I found that you could achieve something similar by making sure the HVScale and Radial Scales (found in the S1 channel of the material modifier) are significantly separated. The setting I used was HVScale of –40 and Radial Scale of 60. Note that the closer those two values are to one another the more uniform the scales will look. The farther apart they are the more size variance you will get as the material flows from large surface areas to smaller surface areas. Each piece of the creature was brought into the workspace and positioned: Head, mandibles, thorax, abdomen, rear six legs, front sword legs.

Finally I created and imported several organic props. I made a quick lizard from a multi-markered set of spheres. I did not attempt to go into great detail with the lizard because I knew it would be small and the detail would be lost. A quick color fill and a quick texture created in TextureMaster completed the lizard. I applied a grainy material and it was done. I imported a fairy and a gremlin from Poser 4. I first created several poses then exported the figures as .obj files. After importing them into Zbrush with the POLYMESH 3D tool I applied a basic material and a base color fill. Then with just RGB selected in edit mode I applied a few highlights and shadows. The Gremlins were going to be in the background and partially obscured by the fog so I did not dwell on detailing their texture. Likewise I applied the Glow material to the fairies so any extra detail there would be compromised as well.

The post work was completed by rendering the image and then exporting it as a .psd file. I then imported it as a texture, created a new layer, selected the flat material, and filled the new layer with the texture. I then worked on this flat picture and added the grass and vegetation. The vegetation was created with the hook brush and the dot alpha. I used the highlighter and intensity tools to adjust the lighting and the shadows of the grass and I used the shading enhancer set with a –12 value to draw in the shadow under the creature.

In all it has been a joyous learning experience (and tiring one lol!). And I thank you all for coming along for the ride. If anyone has any specific questions please fee free to ask!

Also…There is a larger image posted in my Renderosity gallery (1200x1200)

#93

You couldn’t have done a more coherent walkthrough Lonnie! :+1:
Thank you for presenting me, and I am sure many others, with a Cornucopia of new ideas!

:+1: :sunglasses: :+1:

#94

Thanks for putting the time in for the ace walkthrough, plenty of tips to digest. You should do a pdf version like the one for the Balrog. :sunglasses: :+1: :sunglasses:

#95

This is a true masterpiece which has been very fun to watch develop over all this time. Is the shadowing painted in? I can’t tell , it looks so natural and it really anchors him (her?) down on to that cool terrain. You really excel in texturing and coloring. Awesome :+1:

#96

Thanks everyone! Yes Zoid the shadowing is painted in under the creature with the Shading Enhancer brush set to -12.

#97

Way to go Mentat7! I’m glad you persisted through this project. It was great to watch this piece evolve to the image it now is.
It just kept getting cooler with everything from the skin texture you settled on to the final body proportions which definitely give more weight to it.
A Memorable Mentat7 image.

jelee

#98

This is fantastic work!! Diligent modeling-believable/incredible textures-astute combination of elements. Thanks for sharing your insights and this fabulous piece. Terrific!

#99

what a awesome project mentat…and thanks for the brilliantly explained walk through…

#100

great walkthru Lon, I have loved this image since yer first posting of the basic head…You put together one helluva scene and it’s paid off nicely. Obviously everyone has the same concensous about it. I think you might have just earned yer master Zwings :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: