Cobra Snake part 1.

Due to the complexity of the spider model, i have decided to drop this and model a simplier animal as my 3rd render.

Following my theme ("predators, speed and ambush"), I have chosen to model a Cobra snake. I feel this animal will prove to be somewhat easier to create and texture compared to the complex spider model I have been attempting.

I started off with a simple snake anatomy picture and crafted a basic plane to cover the layout of my snake and converted it to an editable poly:



I then expanded the vertices to create the 3d body and head for my snake. Following this I added a symmetry modifer to create the underside of my snake:



Once this was done, i started to look at different poses that my snake might have and chose an upright position. I also flattened and stretched the cobra's neck to give my model it's trademark snake pose:



Alongside this I crafted eye sockets as seperate planes and simply attached them to the snake's head. this was quite tricky to get the scale and position right as well as making sure not too many edges and vertices were left behind after attaching it:



So far so good. I am very pleased with the result at the present time.

Swordfish Texturing part 2.

To apply my texture the render, I used the same method featured in the leaf tutorial in which a black and white image outline is created to hide the texture's background when rendering the model. This allowed me to view what areas of the texture map needed work and and gaps filled in.



I ran into several problems with the original texture map. The stripes were extremely pixelated upon rendering the model and some areas of the texture map were leaving unsightly cracks and creases on the model. I scrapped the stripes and decided to try a very simple texture map and tested it:

I was quite pleased with the result as it produced a much tidier render than the previous texture map. I explanded on this and made sure no gaps or any other visual errors could be seen.

The next step was to start texturing the swordfish's fins and tail. I started by opening the swordfish model and deleted the body, leaving the fins and tail behind.



I unwrapped the model and saved the mesh, this allowed me to carefully paint each section of the swordfish's fins and tail.



Again I used the same method of creating a black and white outline of the sections, allowing me to see which parts needed extra work. Once this was complete, I exported the fins and tail as a seperate Object file and imported it into the file containing the sword fish body (fortunetly the body and fins were aligned correctly so minimal corrections were needed here).



Now the body is complete with all fins and the tail I added a simple eye by drawing a sphere and adding an eyeball texture made in photoshop. The end result can be see here:

Swordfish Texturing

Now my swordfish model is complete - i can start to apply a texture to my render.

I started off by 'Unwrapping' my model using the Unwrap modifier, however due to the shape of this particular animal the fins and tail made the unwrap result very difficult to work with. To work around this the fins and tail were removed and just the fish body was unwrapped. This allowed me to start texturing more easily by doing the fins seperately.



The next stage was to flatten the unwrapped image and save this as a file so the texture can be crafted using Photoshop:



I then imported the original swordfish image i have been working from to recreate the texture over the UVW wrapping mesh. To start, I selected the top half of the fish body and pasted on a new layer to the UVW mesh image, set the Opacity to 75% and began to shape the texture to cover the boundaries.

Eagle Coming Together!

With the head completed, I could now focus on crafting a suitable body to attach this to as well as the eagle's legs.

I used a very basic side view of a bird to create the body using planes and adding a simple symmtery to get the completed 3d render. This was then attached to my eagle's head after adjusting the scale to best suit the head's dimensions.

The final part of this section was to create a pair of legs for my eagle. This again was created using a sideview scientific image of a chicken's leg and using planes to model it. I edited the claws slightly due to fact that an eagle's talons are much larger and more significant to an aerial Hunter.

Once this was completed, I imported the render as an object and simply scaled and attached the leg to the body. I had to mirror the leg using the symmetry modifier to create a right and left leg.

Swordfish cleanup

Looking at my original model, I found a number of inperfections in the vertices as well as the shape and angle of some sections. Because of this, I needed to completely Re-edit the model to reduce the number of vertices and cleanup some 'sloppy' edges which were incorrectly angled and contained some isolated vertices.



By doing this I have crafted a much 'cleaner' and maintainable model. i have also added some extra detail on the fins and nozzle.



One major problem i encountered while doing this re-editing came when I attempted to turbosmooth the model. Doing this created a huge gap through the middle of the swordfish. So in order to work around this I simply welded the suitable vertices together to close the gap. this took time but allowed me to keep a good end result.

I now need to add a few more details around the back of the head before creating and applying my texture to complete this model.

Eagle Head Complete

I have finally finished modelling the head piece for my eagle model. I was surprised by the amount of time this took to model as most of the work done here involved adjusting the model in numerous places to get the shape and angles correct.

Attaching the beak to the headpiece was fairly tricky as I needed to ensure that the mouth was visable from the front and the edges of the mouth wrapped around the front of the eagle's head. regardless of the time this took to render I am very pleased with the outcome!

Eagle Beak

here i have completed my beak for my eagle model. This took about 2 hours to craft the shape and beak sections (upper and lower etc) before applying a turbosmooth effect to finish.