well I’ve been attempting to model a good 3d dragon for my 3d modeling demo reel. i feel it is finally good enough to post. every time i work on this model and post it on this site you guys always find something wrong with it. hopefully this time i have corrected all the issues. as always i appreciate all comments and criticism and will take all of them to heart.
using hd geometry so i can only show 1 small part at a time here is the tail area.
here is the actual low-poly body.
here is an update of the hands
theres a new brush you can use for making scales. i forgot what its called. lol. maybe give it a try
here is an update of the wings
an update of the new alpha, and a little more muscle definition in the legs.
did you give your model a new layer before you model the scales? it is a big nono to give your model alphas without nailing down the mucsles… it will make it impossible to define those areas, not to mention it will make it very messy to clean it up.
i would suggest you to hold onto your urge to touch the alphas and focus on your basic model first. Its head looks weird and its mucsles aren’t define. It would be nice for yuou to actually find a reference of a dragon before you start the model.
good luck.
ok i’ll see what i can do i think the problem was that I made muscles for sections as i went so i made muscles for his arms than covered them with alphas. then today i moved to the legs. it looked better before i brushed alphas over them because now you can see the muscles you only see the alphas. i think i shou have worked as you said made the muscles for all the dragon first then went ahead to the alphas. i wanted this to look more realistic like a big reptile as i wanted to focused on scales and plating and i think i might have messed up in the end.
ya i understand how it feels when you wnat to know what your model will look like with scales/armours/alpha on them, but sometimes you have to hold onto that urge and focus on the basic model first.
when i wnat to see what my models will look like with alpha, i would normally open up a new layers first before i put them on… this way i can turn it off whenever i move back to the basic model 
hope this will help you.
another reason to not to put down alpha first is because it will suck up your workable polycounts… sometimes you can put down tons of detail on your model with only 300k polygons, and if you put down the alphas too soon, it will just take away the polycount on your model and make your model looks mushy even tho you have millions of poly on your model.
the face
yea i actually sculpted muscles but you can’t notice them under the alphas. so I’m going back and i actually was able to smooth of the alpha and go over it with the clay tool. so I’m getting more definition in there now. my second question to you is what looks funny about his face.
if you wouldn’t mind me asking that is. i want to composite him in a life background so i want him to look as good as possible.
hmm the face huh?
Here are a couple of reference images that might help you out a bit.
I know they helped my out.
Enjoy
Very cool dragons!
thank you for all the help this will defiantly come in handy
No problem. man:D
I’ve leaned that if the basic anatomy of the model is not accurate, no amount of detailing will make it look right.
Your piece has some good concepts, but you have to work on the structure more. You have to be able to see muscles and tendons. Spikes and horns don’t just pop out of the skin. THere’s all kinds of bulging and stretching and interesting things goin on under the skin.
And beleive me, ALWAYS leave detailing for the last step.
I’m not saying my dragon is awesome or anything, but have a look:
I’m trying to take your advice and go back i smoothed out all my alphas and I’m going over all the muscles adding more shape and anatomy to them.
still working hard to fix the muscle problem I actually think it looks much better the way it is now put i really need to focus on the feet and hands tomorrow.
The image is very help helpful for me to make dragon using 3d zbrush,but i don’t understand how i make wing of dragon?
as you can see I’m working pretty hard to try and fix the underlining structures but lots of work to go.
