The making of the Lascer

So as Lawrence stated in earlier posts I was working on the Lascer model. I thought I would post some WIP images and try and explain the process I went through in an attempt to bring this creature to life. Like all art it starts with an idea and sketches, which you have all already been introduced to and shown. I than take those drawings and begin to work out what needs to be done to bring them into the 3D realm. I look at things and identify problems with the design that may not work in a 3D environment that may have worked fine if we were doing a 2D animation. Such as where the shoulders were originally attached and their scale would not have worked on this creature in real life so I had to change that. I started this creature out with a speed sculpt of the bust of the Lascer so that I could get an idea for the forms of the head and get a better understanding for the feeling of the creature and possible problems that may arrise from the complex solid forms on the head and neck. I try to keep the speed sculpts under an hour two at most.

I than being modeling. I prefer drawing the basic body shape with a spline and the extrude that out to get the basic proportions of whatever it is I am modeling.  I than create openings in the topology to make the arms and legs.

I than go about modeling as if I was doing it for a game model as it is a very efficiant and conservative way of modeling which will all pay off later when I import it into ZBrush. Which is exactly what I will do.

Once I have my low poly finished I take it into ZBrush and begin working my way up from large forms to small forms.  Once I am done with the high poly sculpt I will be using it to generate a Normal map, we will be using a lower poly model for animating for the sake of simplicity and time constrants seeing as this is for a class so we need to make sure it will launch on the schools Apple computers. After all that I will begin to texture the Lascer which will have to wait for another post. So until than I hope you enjoy the images.  Oh and the final high poly model. It is missing the teeth and eyes because they will be creating within Maya.