Sorry about the name. “Alien General” isn’t very catchy, but I panicked coming up with a name.
Did this model based on a sculpt from the awsome http://www.schellstudio.com just for fun. Check it out! There’s alot of cool sculptures there. Part of my plan to create one character a month. So far so good.
Sculpted in Zbrush, textured in Mudbox and Photoshop and rendered in Maya using Mental Ray with a bokeh lens.
Even if it’s done, comments and crit is welcomed.
Thanks!
/Chris
That is SO, incredibly, obviously, undeniably… TOP ROW.
Fantastic!
More!
5 stars.
Love this!
Awesome 3d all-round. I especially love the render and that it was done with mental ray- shows you really know it.
I wish there was more to it though. I think you should complete this with a scene\environment too
great. though i am in agreement with the background lacking.
amazing!!
Damn cool!!, love his eyes!
great sculpt and render small_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamond
Great sculp and render! could you post some clay renders as well?
Great model, i really like the textures.
You used fast_skin + mia_material for the skin?? What kind of lighting did you use exactly? What kind of image you used for the bokeh lens?
Congrats 
EricShawn:
Thanks man!
Andwew:
Thank you. Yeah I know that you mean. My biggest issue is that I have loads of more unfinished full body characters I should be doing instead. This one became more something of a test trying out new ways to render my characters. I’ll be doing more post in the future with environments and other elements to make it a more finished render.
GX@W:
Thanks! And noted on the background.
jack999; manzarek123; Nattawat_OBBI:
Thanks! Did a few renders with different eye shapes and colours. Unfortunately I never saved them as renders.
nassosa:
Sure, I’ll see to it that I get some zbrush renders after the weekend.
andream:
Yes, mental rays SSS-shader connected to the additional color slot on the mia_materail_x-shader. Depending on the model I might use mix8Layer-shader as well.
I just used a two light setup this time instead of three light like I usually do. Instead of a third light I used a very faint IBL. Other than that, just one outline light from behind and one keylight in the front. I had a mia_portal_light and mib_blackbody connected to both lights.
My bokeh lens image was this one, only not as extremely separated:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/proj1/AdditiveColorMixing.png
Alright, so here some screens from various stages in the modelling/render process. Not necessarily in the order it was made. I’m not gonna go into detail into exactly what is what and what is connected to which and then if what is connected to which will which connect to who bla bla bla…
This is just a BPR from Zbrush. You can se the wrinkles more clearly with this shader than on the final render in Maya. This is something people often forget or don’t think about. It’s always cool to sculpt with a cool looking shader in the beginning. This is fine if that’s all you want to do. But if you’re planning on continuing with your model outside of Zbrush in for example Maya, you might want to think about what MatCaps your’re using when sculpting. There are alot of MatCaps with “cavity enhancers” if you wanna call it that. The red default one is one of them. It mostly gives the illusion that your model has deeper wrinkles than it really has, which you will pay for in the long run. I use MatCap Gray or any of the older Basic Materials.
Oki doki, that’s a bit more than I planned on writing. Of course I could continue on the light setup and so on, but there are a lot really great tutorials out there explaining how to do it to you in exchange for cash. Rightfully so! It takes some time to learn and understand everything that’s happening in the process. Just kidding… Not about people wanting cash but… Well you know. Anywho, it’s getting late. I might have rambled on and on quite a bit. So if you do have any questions, please post them here and I’ll try to help if I can. I won’t charge you though… Yes I will… No, just kidding… Like I said, it’s late. I’m tired… Zzzz…
For some reason this guy reminds me of Gary Busey
Awesome alien!Great job!small_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamond
Awesome breakdown, thanks Chris for these useful information! You should do tutorials for money hehe
Just one question: Final Gather or GI??
TOP ROW
Nice work ! I like the textures.
I think the eyes look a bit flat in my opinion. Maybe some highlights could add something…
Well done
GRUNDFAST:
Thanks? 
digitalmind:
Cheers!
andream:
Perhaps! I could always use the extra bucks. Thanks! I accept protein supplements as well.
I always use Final Gather.
-Gopher:
Thank you! I think the eyes might look flat because of the refraction. There’s a subtle reflection in the eyes but it’s a bit faded on the smaller render and the curve of the lens makes it even smaller. Could’ve boosted it a bit more, I agree.