The Hippopotamus project

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

Hello everyone…

I´ve been lurking in the forums for some time, admiring all the beatifull artwork the members share, and decided to take a plunge and post my own WIP thread.

My knowledge despite the years using 3d modelling tools is still pretty basic due to workflow/time constraints (as an architecture collaborator i´m pretty much limited to this subject ) , but i´m trying to span my knowledge in every aspect of this Area using Blender of course.

So i´ll use the privilege of this thread to share my experiments.

Currently i´ve been working on a Hippopotamus character, and once i knew about the Christmas image competition decided to put this same work to use.

Had to give another twist to the base character in order to participate (for the history see the worklog here : http://hippopotamusproject.blogspot.pt/ ), and started to work on a “Baby” hippo, and here is the result so far:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iFBb-gCt9Mk/UMpoOj8GZWI/AAAAAAAAAdw/s55zTnHcYDA/s912/baby.png
baby.png912×513

Comments/suggestions are welcome as always.

#2

This is looking pretty good! I checked out your link and really liked the previous hippos too! Although I am by no means an expert in anyway, the cloth ‘feels’ a little heavy. It looks like a thicker blanket, but something makes it look heavy… it might just be the material though, I’m not sure.

#3

thanks @B-Rae ! yeah… perhaps the cloth is not falling right… anyways these are my first attempts at sculpting with blender, so i still have a lot to learn.

#4

I agree with the cloth. Just make it a little thicker.
I think that the back foot has a weird position and try not to use that much SSS (scale down the “scale” value )
Other than that I like the sculpt I can see that you studied the animal quite well.

#5

Yup… been a couple of months of study, still as i said i have a lot to learn , thanks for the comments AlinB , this subject is to be a part of the christmas competition and i may not have time to work the cloth realistically :frowning:

Here is another updete, for the christmas competition:

Group.png960×540 484 KB

#6

I like it. The models are great and I like the style as well but I think you could spend a bit more than on the lighting. It would be cool to see the moon with a funny face too.

#7

Thanks AlinB ! And yes, i was expecting to be able to work a little more on the lighting, textures and background but the deadline of the Christmas contest caught up on me, so at least i was able to post it on time at 21st December.I knew about this contest a week before it ended and used the contest as motivation to finish something.

This was actually my first serious attempt at sculpting and texture painting in Blender so, apart from the little hippo with cloth, the male head and female sculpt, everything was prepped in approximately . 4 hours, and included in that was :

  • Posing ; Texture Painting ; Sculpting adjustments for the female.
  • Rebuilt the body for the male (the body and the feet/legs were modeled with a subdivision modifier) ; Texture Painting the body /Adjusted texture for the head
  • Modeled / textured the star - did not finish this one
  • Texture Painting the little hippo
  • Started modelling the moon but had not enough time to finish it.

Although unfinished i will have to call this one done after spending almost every bit of free time in this project since August or so working on hippo variants, as you can check through the http://hippopotamusproject.blogspot.pt/ work log.

I also decided to release as soon as possible the related blender file and variants in which i´have been working on these months through my blog.
I´ll be happy if anyone gets to use this work, that would be gathering dust otherwise - but do credit me if you use it and keep me noticed of your efforts.

Cheers everyone ! keep on Blending :slight_smile: