If you google search for ‘frog’ you’ll find dozen of images to look at; as you will see, the eyes are not correct and the skin is more strongly bumped and glossy.
Keep it up!
paolo
Thanks for the advice, sourvinos!
I see what you mean about the frog’s skin. I’m rendering in Blender internal, and I’m not sure how to make the material more glossy.
To add more bumpiness to the skin, I’ll try increasing the strength of some of my bump maps. As for the eyes, I noticed that most frogs have either completely black eyes or sort of wedge-shaped eyes. I wanted to make the style of this image a little more toony, and I wanted to make sure that the viewer could see where the eyes were pointed. (This is also my first complete character, so I wasn’t sure how to make any other type of eyes except human-like eyes :D). I may change them if I need to later.
Thanks again!
For the bump, what matters is the right texture, not its strength only.
Look at the various images and try to visualize how the skin is bumped, it has a sort of dense rounded reliefs, then try with the several kind of procedural texture nodes that cycles has; since you can mix them in many modes, and you can adjust their brightness and contrast as you need with the use of other nodes, you can get almost everything.
The alternative is… having the right image ready to apply.
EDIT: it could be even a small portion of textures to clone in Texture Paint.
As for the eyes, it’s your character, i don’t intend to interfere, my thought was that in a so strong close-up, human-like eyes would have made more difficult to identify him as a frog.
paolo
@sourvinos- No problem, paolo:)! I can definitely see what you mean about the eyes making the frog hard to identify. I’ll try to make a few different eyes for it, and see if those look better.
I’m having trouble with the skin bumps. Do you know if its possible to use a displacement modifier or a certain setting to make the skin bumpier? I’m using the internal renderer, and sometimes when I’m altering the settings of some of my textures, the skin has lots of dark markings, and it looks like the texture is stretched somehow.
Thanks again for your advice!
From what I understand,
if the map is stretched it depends on UV map that is stretched, and every UV mapped texture, even with the displace modifier, will be distorted. Alternatively you could apply the textures in Object or Generate coordinates, but you loose control.
As for the using of Displacement modifier, you can, but you need a fine enough subdivision of the object (also a subsurf modifier above the displace in the stack), and you need… the texture.
About the dark marking you talk about, I can guess they are due to a bump that is too strong.
EDIT: I realized just now that you are using internal, well, what I said about cycles procedural textures is still valid for blender textures.
paolo
Here’s another update:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]244591[/ATTACH]
I figured out how to make the frog’s skin shinier, and I’ve also used a few procedural textures to add some bumps too.
I’m trying to give the fly some hair (at least on its legs), but I’m having a little trouble with the particle system settings. I would also like to add hair to its body, but when I try to comb it in particle mode, the hair is difficult to control.
I’m still not sure what kind of background would fit this image. I’ve tried changing the horizon color in the world settings, but because the frog’s skin material has mirror activated, it reflects the color of the world. Any suggestions on how to fix this?
Thanks in advance for any advice or critiques.
I haven’t been able to work on this for the past few days, but here’s a little more progress:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]245080[/ATTACH]
I’ve added some Freestyle lines to the render to give the edges an outline (please let me know how this looks. Is adding the outlines a little overboard?)
The frog’s skin has also been changed a little more.
I think I’m almost finished with this render, but I can’t think of a good background for this image. I want it to compliment the image without overpowering it. (I also plan to composite the image too.)
I’d be grateful any suggestions for a background.
I’m also glad to accept any other suggestions or critiques to make this project better :).
I don’t think the multiple eye-reflections, or the textural complexity of the frog’s skin, are helping you here. Now, it looks like he’s standing in a photographic studio with three lights. The first shot with a simple point (“update” in shot #12) is all that I think you really need.
The essential element of this shot will be the pose of the fly. In your concept drawing, first of all, he’s facing the frog. His arm is back like he’s about to sock it to him. The two characters have eye-contact; the frog shows disbelief. The fly, not the frog, is the number-one actor in this scene … everything depends on him. Not the frog.
I’d frankly use the shot in #12-Update because it’s somewhat of a “cartoon” style, which I think is appropriate, and it isn’t visually distracting. Also, the fly’s going to stand out more against the relatively plain background and the frog’s eyes aren’t going to be a competing “brightest area in the shot.” The fly will be one visual point, and the single catch-light in the frog’s eyes will be the second one point.
Also, you’re going to be using a lot of cut-aways to different camera positions and cropping: the concept-shot, #15, “ECU The Fly,” and so on, probably in quick succession, and you’re going to need a relatively simple setup that’s going to look consistent and more-or-less the same at each distance. Bumps and skin-details … if they don’t look like acne … are going to be much harder to render, and certainly visually distracting or troublesome, when you go about doing that. You don’t need that headache, and neither does the shot, IMHO. A smooth skin with a little bit of wet-highlights on the other hand will be convincing and easy, because you can (if you need to) “comp” the highlights in.
You’re going for “Tom & Jerry” and the best of Warner Brothers Cartoons here, and I’d go with that.
Thank you very much for your advice sundailsvc4!
I really appreciate your input. I think I was trying to add a little too much to the scene, and that was what was taking away from it. I’m going to simplify it to make it closer to the render in update #12.
I’ll post the new render when I get the chance.
I’ve finally gotten the chance to make some changes to my render.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246647[/ATTACH]
I think I’m starting to like this simpler approach more than my previous renders.
I removed the extra bumps from the frog’s face and changed the lighting a bit.
I was wondering if anyone had some advice on the lighting (I don’t want the light to look too intense, but I still want the frog to look uncomfortable, and the fly to look menacing).
I’m also having issues with adding hair to the fly. I’m able to set up the particle system, but I’m not sure how to make the hairs face in different directions.
I hope to finish this project soon! 
I like the frog a lot.
The fly is ok but could benefit from more work. The fly benefited a lot from freestyle: its pose is much easier to read.
The eyes are important. The frog’s eyes are great, but the fly’s eyes are almost a uniform red. I am not sure if the following would be feasible. It at all possible (including in terms of time invested), you may consider trying to improve the rendering of the multi-faceted nature of flies’ eyes: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=fly+eyes . I imagine the eyes with each facet having the evil red reflection…
But I am being too demanding. The last picture is already awsome and 1000 times better than anything I could achieve! Well done!
Thank you so much for your kind words augustin valjean!
I’ve posted the final render in the finished projects forum: http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?300823-Oh-the-Irony&p=2424701#post2424701
I’ve been working hard to learn Blender, and have learned a lot from this project. I look forward to learning more from future projects.