my last exam (for this semester) was yesterday. Started modelling cthulhu, just for the hell of it.
I’ve only put attention on the mouth so far, the eye is just a gaping hole.
c+c…
If I recall correctly, that is something from Dungeons and Dragons, no? The race of mind flayers maybe?
Cthulhu is actually from H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, which were written in the early part of the last century. Cthulhu was a humanoid titan-god that came to earth from other stars. His head is squid-like in that the mouth is surrounded by feelers/tentacles. he has long narrow dragon-like wings coming from his back and large claws for hands and feet. Lovecraft wrote some great stories in the cthulhu universe, and many of the ideas in them were used later on by gamers.
pick up Lovecraft’s story “Call of Cthulhu” for the most details (though there are many other stories in the mythos, like “dunwich horror” and “shadow over innsmouth”).
Update: gave him an eye, reshaped the head
don’t like the eye will work more on it later
eye socket and mouth opening (which you can’t really see) were made with new knife tool. Quite useful, but annoying because the vertices on the cut area are hard to work with… maybe if I was more steady with a mouse 
I have read only, ‘The Lurker at the Threshold’, which was really good, so I will pick up the other as well I think.
“lurker at the threshold”? I don’t remember that one… but i’ve read many of his stories…
I’ll have to go look it up.
Gr8: nice work so far- I found with the knife tool that if you click and release (instead of click and hold) then move the mouse, it drawes straight lines (polylines) adding an endpoint each time you click. this is better for some kind of work than drawing the line.
some more changes, played with the shape of the head more, tried to add a vouple wrinkles to his brow, gave him nostrils (may not keep them)
…unless you spell it Ktulu, then its a kick @ss MetallicA song (about H.P’s beast as well…) 
Matt
Blend on, and blend well!!!
It’s looking good, but, I think your wrinkle method could use some refinement,…here’s a wire of a head I made with some wrinkles that might help. ==>
and subsurfaced===>
Hope you don’t mind me posting this image here,…I can take it down if you do. Just say the word, and it’s gone.
looking at it, it looks like the creases would be rather deep. I was looking for more of a slight surface ripple-wrinkle.
(but the subsurfed image didn’t load 
)
well maybe I can adapt the technique. It looks like you actually cut or subdivided the mesh specifically for the wrinkles, then pulled some parts of the mesh in towards the centre of the head… am I close?
Were the wrinkles planned in, or added after the base head was modeled?
I need to sleep on this model, it’s not really looking the way I planned…
You are correct. I cut them in with the knife tool, and pulled the middle vertices inward.
And then there’s also Metallica’s “The Thing that Should not Be”, but I’m not really sure it’s about Cthulhu, maybe about the Shoggoths…?
Ahh, i see as well as Lovecraft you are also familiar with the lore spun by Hetfeild, good man!!!
Matt
Blend on, and blend well!!!
How dare you misspell His Greatness’ name?!? 
Just kidding.
I’m not familiar with the stories, but I’ve heard the name Cthulhu somewhere… Great model so far, keep up the good work. Very interesting indeed, maybe I should read the stories, too…
Tried out Modron’s brow-wrinkle technique:
also started the neck(body is still just a scaled cylinder)
…an Shoggoths were in Lovecraft’s writing too. “Mountains of Madness”, “Shadow over Innsmouth”, and a couple others.
Of course, if you wanted to model one it would probably just be a couple of metaballs, no real challenge…
Good work, so far. Keep going.
It’s good to see some off beat subjects being tackled. (Well, Lovecraft is sort of off-beat in the CG world %| ). It is very useful to see the development of a complex model such as this from scratch.
Blend on!
I’ve been doing some work on the shoulders and neck, and then skipped the chest and went straight to the gut!
I gave him abs nice 6-pack!
I’m not sure I like them though and may ditch them later… I guess the problem is I’m not really sure how to model the abodoment. He’s not human, so ribs, and human-like muscles wouldn’t make much sense, but then I can’t leave him as a smooth cylinder either. I might just add slight vertical ripples to the basic cylinder. Also, not sure if I should make him a bit fat (swelling the abdomen out) or give him a hungry/starving look (sucking the abdomen in). If I’m not sure what to do, I might just go straight to the wings and come back to torso later.
any suggestions??
I forgot to save the previous version of cthulhu (with the abs) which is good because they looked like crap.
here’s the latest. did a bit on the arms, and more on the abdomen. can also see placeholders for wings in the back
I had a few free minutes today, so started working on the wings.
A usual, comments/crits/suggestions welcome. Here’s what I’ve got:
I’ve also got trouble with the knife tool! When I try to select a face loop or cut a face loop, blender crashes and exits. This happens when I try to cut on the wing, near the end section. Is there a rule about cutting or selecting face loops I don’t know about?