I did a few things to start off learning how to use blender and then i decided i wanted to make my very own dragon, so sorry if its not perfect but i wanted some feedback on this too see how i am progressing, its not completely finished but i have done quite a bit of it.
I only had a side view of the dragon pic which made it even more complicated so a little advice on how i could improve would be greatly appreciated.
With this i have attatched 2 renders of my image, and my blend file so please do take a look.
For a first attempt at 3D, it’s honestly not THAT bad. There is still a LOT to improve though.
One thing I would suggest is to have your dragon reference in the viewport. If you go to View - Background Image, you can import the image to the viewport and resize it. You can only see it when the viewport is straight on (side, front or top under the View menu). Keep looking between the model and the picture and soon you will start to see what needs work.
There is a good basic figure modelling tut here:
It’s for a human, but the same principles apply for any organic (and for most other stuff, actually).
only thing i can suggest is to add a plane underneath your beast and then add ambiant occlusion and also change the color of your dragon to a nice less in your face color
like grey
u will notice a vast improvement in your renders (imo)
and may notice some errors etc u wont notice with your current setup
and as for the modeling its not a bad attempt at all keep it up
he looks a little boxy. ( this gets said alot to new blenderers ) meaning some parts could be more roundish and less squarish. the jaw line sticks out to me the most. also, I detect you are running into some confusion with how to transition into the foot. I would suggest modeling a foot seperately, starting by modeling one toe, then duplicating it twice, then moving along to the rest of the foot, and somewhere in the space between, try to end up with an edge loop that has the same number of vertexes as his ankle. then just fill in the gap with a row of faces and possibly tweak them somewhat.
aynelhara =] thanks for the advice, just wanted to add, i do have dueclipping activated but i deactivated it temporarily because i needed to do the wing and i found with it enabled it merged the two wings together which is not what i wanted ;o
Tea Monster, i am aware of the viewport and do use the red dragon in the side view, i just get at a loss as to how the front is supposed to look lol but definately thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated
Mr Starfire… im not sure what ambient occlusion is ;o also the colour is just because i have stole the colour from the image background ie. the dragon picture, however i was watching a small video on textures and i plan to make it look different later on, possibly even a lil more cartoonish style, but i will definately give the greyish colour a try.
and Modron… I havent finished the shape of the head and neck, this was only 3-4 days work of learning the program, not until i have finished the dragon body shape including the tail then i will be working on the shape and hopefully will be able to end the boxyness as you put it haha, but definately as i work on it more i will be looking for more advice from people like you on how to improve on the shape =] especially since i dont have a clue how it should look from the front
I just said that because the vertexes on the forehead aren’t merged, so there is a hole when you move them. It isn’t bad at all. If you notice at the ankle all the pinching, that isn’t a good thing. Try moving those loops around a bit, and if worst comes to worst I would delete the foot and remake it.
As for finding out what the front looks like, try looking at a picture of Spyro in his heroic pose?
yeah, i am really struggling at the foot =[ and i wasn’t criticizing your advice i was just saying why it wasnt on do clipping ;o and i agree i will probably make the leg xD and hahaha i didnt realise my dragon looked like spiro slightly lol do you think it would be easier to do the arms straight and then bend them using a armature?
Ok i have gone off and took some advice from you guys and have made the nescicary adjustments, you will have to let me know if its come out as you expected or if i have made it better or worse lol.
Firstly i changed the shape of the head so it was less boxier, i then went on and put my do clipping back on, there was a hole which should not of existed which appeared slightly lol, then as i made the shape of the face i added in the eyes so i could see what it would look like of course, oh and the colour, i tweaked the specularity of the colour to add a bit of brightness, also lessened the hardness of the colour to make it less sparkly, and finally adding a tiny bit more light that the object emits making it in the whole a colour that became a whole lot less in your face =]
thank you again for all your feedback and anymore would be appreciated, right now im getting rid of the legs to see if i can improve that any more, gonna consider making the legs then just attatching them to the body with F making a face hopefully this way i can minimize how much twistyness is in the arm
