Rhinoceros WIP

[SimonTG]

update:[]

            Obviously, the textures and sculpting are not finished, Im aplying base textures sorta early as I plan to use them as a reference for the detail sculptingand refine em later on. 
               
            Btw I wondering what you guys think about this technique, normaly most people do all the detailing first and then start working on textures afterward. I find it easier to work on both at the same time wich some people find kinda akward.
               
            Anyways, comments, critiques more than welcome, if anything seem "off" or you find things I should look out for dont hesitate and tell me.

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[Johannes]

Hi!,

Wanted to say that your rhino is looking very promising so far. You've got what looks like a good base mesh that won't fight with you later and it looks like you've got a nice UV setup or your mesh is also allowing for good painting (this is always where I run in to adventures;) ). You also have a really nice basic set of reference photos and that's a godsend, especially since you're dealing in an animal with different anatomy than ourselves. There's also a really nice look to the flat color map (It looks like it may be closer than the shader modified texture to your reference - the shader version seems a bit too wet/shiny compared to the reference photos). Looking at the sculpt itself, the one thing that strikes me first is that, in the reference, one can see very strong evidence of the major bony structures, such as the angles of the skull and jaw, and the sharpness of the actual silhouette of the joints - this is especially apparent in the hind leg where the joint analogous to our ankle forms a really sharp angle before continuing down to the "toe"/foot that bears the weight of the leg. In the sculpt, it seems like a lot of these kinds of joint and bone shapes are very rounded and that seems to steal some of the strength from the sculpt. I had a sculpting teacher who always told me to initially over exagerate the angles of all the bony joints (elbows, wrists, knees etc) and any bony protrusions (trochanter, rib cage, ilium etc) so that the basic structure was initially very clearly defined (over defined, actually) and then wait until the sculpt went into the finalizing stages before starting to soften or round out the joints, while always looking at the skeletal anatomy underneath the surface of the joint. Sorry if I'm not explaining this very well, but if it sounds like something you'd like to try and my explanation didn't make enough sense, just let me know and I'll be glad to sketch out the process. There's also an excellent section on this method in John Brown's sculpting tapes from Gnomon (disclosure: I'm a Gnomon alumni so I might be biased;) ). There's also an book by Eliot Goldfinger that deals with animal anatomy and it has both a muscle diagram and skeleton for a Rhino (and lots of other animals), it's a bit expensive ~ $50, I think, but if one does a lot of animal sculpts or just bases one's work on animal anatomy, it's definitely worth it. Like I said before, you've got a really solid base to work from on this sculpt and I think it will turn out very nicely when it's done. I look forward to seeing the next update.

Johannes

P.S. I think your idea of working texture and detail simultaneously may have some real merit. I find that by the time I’m done with detail passes, I’m usually so overly familiar with the look of the model that it gets hard to be very “loose” in roughing out the paint job and your idea may fix this, so I’ll be trying that on my present sculpt and seeing if it helps. Thanks!

[SimonTG]

Thanks a lot for the comments, you are right about quite a few things, some joints were looking sorta too soft and the color bump material was looking sorta bad. I tried to correct that but somwhat ran into some trouble getting joints to look a bit sharper…

Anyways, ive had the time work on this project a bit inbetwen other stuff here is an update, almost done texturing and still some sculpting to do but its coming along

[](javascript:zb_insimg(‘92174’,‘Rhyno_TextureMap_01 copy.jpg’,1,0))

Again, any comments, good or bad, more than welcome

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[splodge]

Just freaking awesome!

The only thing that stands out to me is his eyes. Your model has no eye lids. But I’m sure you’re gonna add that feature soon enough.

Keep up the great work, Simon!

[RiVvenGuard]

That poor rhino must be cold, give 'em a blankie!..good job on the texturing