I love this! I’m for sure going to be hiring you to help me with some darker creature designs in the future 
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That is an interesting and unusual trinity right there. 
I like “in between world” stories.
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Thank you for the kind words.
@piranha4D 
Heavy influence for me, all three of them. So inspirational. I’m glad! Really love movies like Pans Labyrinth, Stalker, Narnia (hah, they don’t seem to fit together, but kind of. Portal fantasy, but not really “different planet”, more like… the other world in your neighborhood).
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Tiny update although hours are flying by. So much to learn in Mari, still so many things I don’t quite yet understand.
Started with a clean slate, began with masks, flat/base colors and started with minor displacement. Will rewatch some videos before proceeding. I’d like to have at least skin displacement, something for the nose and ears. Need to learn how to work with the procedural nodes in Mari.
Funny, how one spends hours learning and practicing and hasn’t got anything to show for it. But I guess thats just the way it is when learning new things. 
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In the meantime, some new sketches, thoughts etc. Tried to apply what I learned so far in “Picture This” and it really helps. Funny how I originally thought that I could “rush through” the sculpt, render and be done with this model. But since I’m learning so many new things right now I’m really slow (at least it seems that way). Great thing is - weeks ago I only thought about doing this.
This is kind of personal, but I feel so alive since I just started pursuing the things I wanted to do since I was a child. I don’t even know what I was so afraid about. Sure, I’m waaay behind everyone else and years went down the “I can’t do this”-drain, but… it doesn’t seem to matter?
Huge learning experience for me: When I decide to do something and do it, all the past “what ifs” suddenly feel very insignificant. They’re still there, but it’s more like a lurking shadow, not the main voice in my head anymore.
Enough with my diary 
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Learning, practicing, stuff like that.
Not happy with displacement, taking notes for next model (need to organize my nodes better, especially the order of the different layers), will get there eventually
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Ugh, alright, so many problems. Trying not to be frustrated, but god I’m so frustrated.
- Getting the texture to look like in Mari in Blender is a struggle in itself, at least for me since I don’t know yet all the details. One thing I learned tonight is that Cycles does indeed look “better”, at least with the displacement maps I created in Mari.
- Strange behavior with the displacement maps, need to redo the displacement, I think the values are off (…)
- Don’t paint diffuse maps in 16bit, convert them to 8bit and expect the same results (lesson learned, oh boy)
Spent some time in Eevee, here’s a viewport render. Doesn’t look how I want it to look, but I need to redo the maps and then spend time in Cycles to figure out a way to get the same results as in Mari.
Everything will work out, right? Right. So frustrating when you’re kind of satisfied, bake the textures, apply them in another software and… don’t get the same result. But I’m a noob. That’s why this happens. Good thing = I can improve.
Next steps:
- Redo displacement
- Texture the eyes
- Re-rig (because I deleted the old armature, please don’t ask me why)
- Try out fur
- Learn about lights
- Render this thing with a pose, simple background and functioning baked maps so the details aren’t lost - like right now.
As a comparison, these are the textures in Mari
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Yes. Absolutely. Everyone I know who takes this seriously goes through these sorts of frustrations when moving between software. Every single one. And after a while they figure it out and it becomes easier, but there’ll still be occasional hiccups when they do something unusual, and then one or the other software changes, and you have to learn how to adapt. So it gets better, but never “just click a button” easy. So far. Interoperability is a challenge when companies are intent on building their own walled gardens.
Most studios write their own custom tools to support their pipelines because it is such a pain.
Every time I see the stag he looks clearly better. So yes, you’re definitely making progress despite the frustrations.
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I second Piranha - I as a fairly ignorant outsider can see progress every time you post. Of course, your screenshots don’t show how much work and struggle went into them, but take comfort in the fact that your end results are truly, mind-blowingly, impressive
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@piranha4D @joseph Thank you to both of you. It helps a lot to hear feedback, like a lot lot.
No such thing as “ignorant outsider”. I’m glad you take the time to comment.
It’s still “easy” to fall into the trap of thinking things like “you’ll never make it” or “it’s too hard, don’t bother” - but not this time, goblin brain. Not this time. 
Thank you for being active in such an inspiring community.
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Alright. Turns out I didn’t have to redo the displacement map. Received valuable feedback and got the hint of using the right mid values - and I didn’t turn on “Displacement AND bump” in cycles. Well, thats no good when I am creating maps in Bump nodes in Mari and then wonder why it doesn’t look like that anymore in Blender…
Learned mostly about hair systems today and tonight. Decided to go with the particle system for now since I wanted to have control over density etc with maps. The new system looks great, I will try it out on another model for sure.
Just grinding at the moment. Sleep is for the weak, right? 
Stag goes to the hair salon.
Before: “Please help me.”
After: “Not what I really wanted, but much better.”
(Viewport screenshot)
What I’d like to improve on:
- The material itself, the fur still feels kind of plastic-like (using the hair bsdf)
- different/more length variation, especially on the front
Nose still needs to have its own roughness (spec?) map. Need to dive into render settings and learn about those.
Feeling like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland at the moment. No time. So much to learn. 
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It’s a porcupine x stag hybrid! How? I don’t know – magic. :heh: And while the follow-up isn’t quite there yet, I agree it does already look much better, especially with that back light.
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Yeah it doesn’t look like I want it to at all at the moment. But I’ll find a way.
Some sketches and notes of stuff I’m picking up at the moment
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I have endless admiration for the looseness, the non-detailed nature of your sketches that still perfectly conveys what you want it to. Sketching is as much an art form as anything else, and you are a master of it.
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Uuuupdate.
This one is a journey for sure. Hours of being frustrated, making silly mistakes (like not having “Show ermitter” on and then wondering why I can’t see the mesh while rendering etc)… A lot of comparing, a lot of “this can be better, I can’t stop here” and a lot of frustration because I want the fur to look better but I don’t know how yet.
Also my pc is struggling a bit and I need to learn how to be efficient and not “I want everything to be super high poly”.
All in all I think I’m nearing the finish line with this model. I want to sculpt stylized trees in the next step to frame the stag and have a cinematic-like feeling.
I’ll add some lore/write something once I’m there to give this learning model some… background. For myself. I like worldbuilding.
(cylinders are placeholders for trees)
Kind of can’t wait to do the next model (maybe with Eevee) and move on, but I also want to push myself and pour my heart into this one. I’ll work some more, post the final render and then consider it done.
Thank you, as always, for everyone visiting my sketchbook.
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That’s some nice details on the deer!
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Thank you! That’s motivating to hear. Especially since I feel like there could be more details on the face, but I still need to figure things out
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Feels like he’s just about to move his ears and come to life Great work!
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Thank you so much (: I’d love to have him close his eyes and move his ears a bit. I don’t really know anything about animation yet. Maybe I should at least try instead of waiting for the next projects. (And falling leaves or particles would be great! And a magical unicorn that gifts me skills so I can do everything I’m imagining, hah)
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He looks great to me!
Looking at photos of real-live stags, yeah, he could probably have a bit more detail, especially as regards colour and hair structure – they all seem to have lighter hair around the eyes and the schnoz. And the long hair on the neck could probably be a bit more unkempt.
But IIRC you weren’t originally going for pure realism, but for a magical creature, and in that case he has plenty of the sort of real detail that needs to underpin any fantastical stuff layered on top.
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