This is a current WIP of the castle in the movie “ハウルの動く城, Hauru no Ugoku Shiro” By Hayao Miyazaki. I have only finished the leg so far. if you haven’t seen the movie, I encourage anyone to go watch it, theres an English dub titled “Howl’s Moving Castle” for sale on DVD in America under Disney. Credit goes to Studio Ghibli for the concept of the shot. If anything, this will be a SLOW WIP. The Castle is very detailed and I’m one of those people that forces themselves to make it as detailed or more so then the original so it may be a while before I have more on it. this is also an experiment in Mechanics with anime toon shading.
I made the Back door, which is a crucial element of the castle, and plays a part in many scenes. took about three hours to model. (this is why blender pwns all other modeling applications) The toon shading is kind of hard to keep up looking fairly high quality I need to add the shingles still, and I know it’s not EXACTLY like the original either on this part. there is a problem though, Poly count =,= I’m already up to 800k. (because of the armor plating on the legs) I can only hold about 4mil in the final render if no other energy is being used. I’ve also decided the best way to go about this is to build a textured underbody for the main sections of the hull, and then build the detail around it.
I’ve seen the movie. There is a German duped version too called “Das Wandelnde Schloss”. You are coming along nicely.
Seeing your poly count you are not planning on animating this one right?
Are you going to model the characters too?
Do you always work like this? Meaning do you always build a part and then shade and texture it? Or do you normally do the modelling before starting to assign materials and textures? I’m trying to find the most efficient and easy workflow so I’m interested what others do…
Thanks for the comment. I like to model by building each individual part, and then Joining the objects, shading them as I go. when I was done, I went back and rendered it with no colors as well, so you could see that the modeling there was more complex then the toon shaders make it look. I use toon shaders a lot, as I am not the best at realisticly shading things, so stylistic is the best way to do it for me, unless I’m using Indigo renderer. it’s probably not the fastest method out there, but it works for me.
No I do not intend to model the charachters.
There is a rig on the feet, and originally i was going to rig the whole thing, but I’m not so sure anymore.
MMkay, I got up early today ate my breakfest of cookies and milk (lol I’m so healthy) and then sat down for another two hours of tweaking colors and modeling. (it took two hours cus the metal plates kept coming out bad until I came up with a good method for doing it.)
poof. first image where we see the door the legs and the hull together. the hull is hardly done, I need to add all the metal slabs, stick some junk out of it according to the pictures I have, and fix up those bolts holding the metal onto the castle. BTW, the lighting on this part kinda sucks because it was more of a quick shot to show what was going on, not to make a pretty picture. I promise I’ll get better lighting next shot =P
Looking good, man. I’ve never seen the show, er… movie, whatever, but I did google an image of it, and you’re modeling is close to exact, even if you don’t think so.
Also, kudos for trying this in the first place. I would have had no idea as to where to start, or even the guts to go after it, anyways. You are brave, sir.
I have neither seen where this has come from but either way it looks really cool.
Maybe it is just me but something about the texture on the main part looks a little to reflective or something like that but maybe it is suppose to look like that according to the original.
Looks great- although not “crappy” enough compared to movie- I mean: your castle (at the moment of course) looks almost robot- like, more high-SF styled then steam powered walking house that looses parts on random. Probably just a matter of finishing it off later on.
BTW- you’re working with incredible speed man, I envy you.
Lol, I didnt get much done yesterday, although 50% of the base hull is done. yeh it dosn’t look “crappy enough”. I’ve still yet to grow the Moss off of it, have random pipes protruding, and the house bits. also the lower jaw needs to be added. I did manage to get to see the movie again yesterday though, which brought several elements of the castle I had previously missed to light.
so it may be a while before I have more on it. this is also an experiment in Mechanics with anime toon shading.
I need to add the shingles still, and I know it’s not EXACTLY like the original either on this part. there is a problem though, Poly count =,= I’m already up to 800k. (because of the armor plating on the legs) I can only hold about 4mil in the final render if no other energy is being used. I’ve also decided the best way to go about this is to build a textured underbody for the main sections of the hull, and then build the detail around it.
poof. first image where we see the door the legs and the hull together. the hull is hardly done, I need to add all the metal slabs, stick some junk out of it according to the pictures I have, and fix up those bolts holding the metal onto the castle. BTW, the lighting on this part kinda sucks because it was more of a quick shot to show what was going on, not to make a pretty picture. I promise I’ll get better lighting next shot =P