eeak!!!
a friend of mine on another site has asked me to make her dragon (click here to see), but i just can’t get the head right! i’ve been trying for weeks and i have made 4 diferant versions but they all turned out butt ugly! can anyone offer some help or advice?
It typically helps to actually show what you have, so we can make comments on it.
i tryed but it won’t let me upload anything
thanks for the tutorial link but i’ve already seen it :). i can do dragon’s easily but this one just makes me want to screem! it’s just a frustrating shape, once i sort out whats going on with the uploading thing, i’ll show you what i have.
Why not try first outlining the dragon with NURBS curves? Idea: Create linked duplicates and mirror them (In object mode: [alt]+[D], [enter] to create linked duplicate; [shift]+[C] to send the cursor to the origin; [ctrl]+[M], [enter] to select an axis across which to mirror the duplicate), then tweak the curves until you have a basic outline. I think I would do a front view outline and a side view outline, move both of them into the distance a little so they wouldn’t interfere with the model, and then split the window into three panes: Front (reference), side (reference), and 3D perspective.
That might help with getting the general shape right, and then it would be a little easier to visualize the details.
…Really, you could do the model itself with linked duplicates, and then at the end join them as a single mesh.
Something that really helps me to visualize a 3D shape is to try sketching it at different angles on paper. And if you can’t seem to sketch it at different angles, sketch faster. And faster. And faster… And go lightly so you can fix problems.
Well, that’s my advice. Good luck!
i never thought of that, thanks.
while i’m here as well i can’t upload anything as i said before, just on this website, i can on others. what’s going on?
Check your filesize or try zipping the file. It won’t let me upload blend files either, but zip files work.
Or just use an external image host and link the images. I almost never use BA’s built in image hoisting system. I typically use photobucket.
Azuria.zip (165 KB)
Finaly! it uploaded. the zip did work thanks. i have tryed image hosting before but not on this site. next time i want to upload an image, i’ll give it a go.
this is the dragon i was talking about. there’s the model on layer one and a 2nd model on the head on the other layer. i know, they both failed epicaly!
If I were to model a dragon, I would give it more of a snake like face. But your inspiration image is very similar to the style of the Blender cookie tutorial. The face you made looks like a dolphin. Pointy nose, rounded forehead. I would blunt those things out and see how that helps.
I’d say if you have a pretty good start. Although if you look at your reference, that dragon has very distinct… cheeks, for lack of a better term; whereas what you have right now flows back from the mouth and directly into the neck. I’d say, grab the edge loop just outside the eye loops and instead of running that down to the muzzle, redirect it down into the cheek and use it to form the outer most loop of the cheek. Then run it into the jaw, that will help sync those two parts together and help to alleviate the “tube of toothpaste” issue a lot of people run into with creatures like this.
I do agree that the muzzle has gone a bit too dolphin shaped. What you can do is takethe edge loop you have running down the center of the face, go into profile view and shape that into the somewhat more blunt look that the drawing has. Then run an edge loop around the top of the nose, over both nostrils and around to meet the upper lip.
If you can pull all of that off it’ll really go a long way towards matching the reference.
(If you don’t get what I’m talking about let me know, I can whip up a quick demo blend for you to take a look at. Edge loops can be tricky sonsa sometimes.)
EDIT: Also try to rework the edge loops around the eyes to create and really emphasize the really heavy eye ridge the ref has.
Your model is not bad at all, it’s hard to create an accurate model from a reference that lack front and side view .
And even more when it’s a sketchy character like this dragon, as often sketchy characters do not really have correct perspective.
But it can be fun, and as i never modelled a cartoony dragon head that look so friendly, usually being more interested in more “realistic” reptilian/draconic head, i gave a try as it’s rather challenging to me not used to this kind ofcartoon modelling.
And indeed that’s really hard to get something that look like the original sketch with front/side
Don’t really look like the reference but oh well i tried.
You can use the crease to get some of the upper jaw/nose/muzzle edges to get a more angular/snaky shape like in the reference when using the subsurf
Dragongirl, your model is VERY good - I feel like a fool now for what I said!
As far as similarity to the reference goes: I suppose it is quite a bit different…
- Based on the shading in the sketch, it looks like there should be a slight valley between the nostrils, particularly where the snout begins to slope downward. In fact, it looks like everything should shrink around the nostrils so they jut outward.
- The bridge between the forehead and the snout should be a little closer to a 90* angle.
- The eyes should move down a little and droop less; they also look like they should be a little more square.
- The back of the mouth should be quite a bit higher, creating a bulkier lower jaw.
- The forehead should be taller and slope back more evenly (but moving the eyes downward might fix that).
- The front of the lower lip should slope backward a little less.
hmm, you have all given me a lot to try. thanks. she did actualy send me another picture (click here to see it). and i found this one on her profile( second down on the left, and yes i’m certain it’s the same dragon) but i think seeing the side view one confused me even more because the nose is more rounded there.
anyway, i’ll post my result up for you to have a look at. thanks
here’s my finished result –>