This is the brazilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus). This species and the southern three-banded armadillo are the only species of armadillos capable of rolling into a complete ball to defend themselves.
Armadillos are special animals and the only mammal that wear this kind of protective shell consisting of boney scales and keratin.
I choose this animal as a personal project because I was interested in how I can sculpt and texture their distinctive shell.
In the end I sculpted eveything by hand withouth the use of alphas or VDMs (except for very high frequency skin detail) to achieve a very organic look with unique scales. For the slight layering effect of the scales I processed the displacmentmap in substance designer and reapplied it on top in zbrush. C&C are welcome
Lovely work…I feel your pain on this one as its obvious you spent an age on the texturing and sculpting process
Thank you. It was indeed labourious and I did regret that approach sometimes. Though texturing wasn’t as bad. I Used substance painter and all the bakes were really helpfull in generating usefull masks.
I love nature, what an incredible animal 
Jaime
Really nice work!
I wonder if I can use the first pic for educational use… My assignment is a project about bionic design of armadillo, and I need a pic to show how it looks like both curled and uncurled. I will mark the source below the pic.(If I get your permission )
Hista
Hi Hista,
if it’s just for non-profit educational use feel free to use it. I would be happy if you would credit me underneath the picture.
Best
frix