Bearstallion

OrganizedChaos

The bearstallion is what it sounds like, a mix between a horse and a bear. I wanted to do this for the gameartisans mini-comp, but I had some computer problems. I don't want to drop the idea, so I figured I'd start a thread and start the progress.

Right now I'm just shaping the mesh, trying to get my proportions down. I'm open to any suggestions/input. I'm considering putting armor on this guy, not sure yet.
My goal is to finish this by Jan 10.

Gallows

Oh my God, I love you for this. The front legs look really weird where they meet at the top. And the knees could use a smoothing or a reshape.

brandoom

Interesting to say the least. I dont think the bear claws are working well in the front, I would change those to the horse hooves. The bear head is looking good.

You planning to take this all the way?

LoTekK

Is it wrong that I keep seeing cameltoe when I look at this? :O

Sauron

keep that muscle thing between front legs, its just horse anatomy. also agree to brandoom adout ftont hooves.
Good job by the way:)

disanski

Nice. Perhaps raise the back side of it just a bit because it is kind of sinking as it is.

ngs616

I like the name beartuar better. Bears and stallions both have 4 limbs, two front two back.

But its a cool idea and is looking good so far.

oobersli

i think you could put a bit more bear into this. bulk up the front legs a tad more and less muscle structure in the arms. A bears skin is so thick you'll rarely ever see muscle definition. Maybe work with the back too. Something a bit more hunched over might look more bear like.

OrganizedChaos

An update:

Still thinking about armor for this guy- it might be cool to do something either shaman/druid like or warrior like. Still undecided on whether this is something people ride or a being on it's own.



gallows- I'm glad you like the idea good call though- I need to figure something out for the knees (still)
brandoom- do you think the hooves work better? I'm definitely modeling, retopoing, and texturing, not sure about rigging/animating though
lotekk- it's a pretty weird horse muscle :X
disanski- I raised the backside up a bit, you think that's better?
ngs616- everyone has their preferences! I like bearstallion it kind of rolls off the tongue, I see your point though
oobersli- I tried smoothing out the muscle a bit. I think once I get to the fur it'll be quite a deal less noticable. I'm thinking about doing my fur similar to what Luciano Di Fede did on their dominance war pet portrait http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/finals_cgsociety_3d_2289.html
I tried out hunching it over a bit (maybe too much?) what do you think?

disanski

Hey there. I think this is better. Perhaps the ratio head/hands is not working very well at the moment? Not really sure but try to scale the head up with 20 %. I am pretty new at this so just an opinion. I also think you should straiten the back legs if you are sculpting it in a relax pose of course. Check this out

I hope this helps

Gallows

Update looks much much better.

zxcman

I love this!

psychoticprankster

Holyshit! I'd hate to have to try outrun this guy! looking good

OrganizedChaos

Gah- I don't think I'm getting to my personal deadline at this point! Ah well, I'm going to make sure I finish this before I work on that gameartisans mini- I'm sure that'll be enough motivation to get this done

Thanks so much for that image disanski - I went ahead and adjusted some things with your reference and scaled the head up. I'm going to do a temp retopo before I get into any real details like the fur and really define the muscles- any suggestions before I do that?

ru4it

tone down the joints in the legs

Progg

Oh my... I would not want to run into one of these in the wild.

3DLee

Oh man, I'm having nightmares tonight... great work! I guess the next meme will be "Needs more bearstallion."

OrganizedChaos

I'm glad everyone seems to like the concept as much as I do
What do you think? Would this be more of a being of itself- or a mount that people ride? I'm having a hard time deciding.

I reduced the knees-is that ok or should i adjust them more?- any more proportion suggestions?

Gallows

I think if it was a mount, you'd have to really fucking earn the right. It seems more of like an elusive animal. Much like a unicorn with more chainsaws and awesome. I still thing the pelvis should be worked out a bit more. The bear one. Have you tried making his stomach there a bit fatter?

roosterMAP

lol, i like the little tail. but i liked it better wth bear feet rather than hooves.

disanski

Looks much better indeed. I would like to see it as a being of itself. Perhaps you were working on a higher subdivision level too soon and right now some of the forms are not looking very natural- like the muscle on top of the front leg, the front knee area.The muscles on top of the ribcage are not really that pronounced and they are also closer one to each other- also they should be a bit lower and closer to the front legs not spread out as you have them.
Here is anther image that i found in my reference folder :


also


Have a look at that horse's legs that would look really good on yours as well I think . Last thing is that if it was me I would make the front legs a bit stronger and add some more volume to them so it holds the big body on top.
Cant wait to see what you come up with next. looks fantastic so far

Gallows

I like the hooves rather than the claws good sir.

Pearson

Very interesting! I like it.

You seem to be using quarter horse proportions, but the difference in weight between the horse neck+head that it is designed to carry, and the massive bear you have on top now, is too large. I would suggest bulking up the horse parts a good bit, at least in the front, so that it looks like the body could actually 'bear' the weight. ! :poly141:

Neox

any more proportion suggestions?

Well basicly i think its hard to combine the very massive bear with an animal like a horse, maybe a belgian draught will work better to support thze massive torso

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/sableisland/images_im/nature_na/horses_ho/belgian_ho.jpg
http://www.worldofhorses.co.uk/horses_usa/Breeds/Images/Belgian_Draught_horse.jpg
http://www.pointernet.pds.hu/lovaglas/horses-links/belgian_draught_1.jpg

especially the long hair around the feet supports the weight pretty good and makes it more massive

otherwise, personally i'd tend more to a rhino like anatomy, which is is good compromise between heavy and nice forms that would support the bear on top

ru4it

Its looking kick ass now. way 2 go.

oobersli

agree with neox. i like what you have now, but ultimately I think something a bit more stout in the lower half would work much better.

conte

woah, that's some really original and unexpected!
Creature looks very dangerous and creepy, good work so far.

OrganizedChaos

Thanks disanski, Pearson, and neox for the suggestion of bulking up the horse- and Neox especially for the belgian draught references, what a fantastic animal that is. I think I'm going to work on the temp retop so I don't have to fight with the mesh as much

disanski- thanks again for the muscle reference- it really helps. I probably was working too high too soon- i tend to flip around a bit too much, I'm going to work on defining areas a bit more, don't worry

Any more suggestions are always welcome and thanks for the kind words

OrganizedChaos

Man, I can already tell this is going to be quite the adventure
Sculpting fur seems to require a lot of patience... either that or I have no idea what I'm doing. Thankfully I found this tutorial [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcNnCCpNaco[/ame]

Anyone have any suggestions besides that? Does it look ok so far?

Progg

Seems like you are running out of polygons. How many subdivisions are you up to in zBrush?

OrganizedChaos

Progg wrote: »

Seems like you are running out of polygons. How many subdivisions are you up to in zBrush?

Ugh, only 5. I was thinking this would be a good time to try out this decimation master plugin- tested it and it worked splendidly, but when I do that I lose my divisions. So I think I'll rough it out for a bit, muscle out the horse section, and then take that leap.

Progg

OrganizedChaos wrote: »

Ugh, only 5. I was thinking this would be a good time to try out this decimation master plugin- tested it and it worked splendidly, but when I do that I lose my divisions. So I think I'll rough it out for a bit, muscle out the horse section, and then take that leap.

Save lots of backups

Harito

OrganizedChaos

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear



Comments/critique appreciated

edit: I haven't decimated the model yet

Pearson

I realize the fur needs a lot of refinement, but I think this is great progress! This really helps the look of the bear.

One thing that jumps out at me is that the fur tends to form rings around his torso. On the neck, this makes sense that rolls of fat are forming the rings, but under his pecs on the front, I think you need to smooth out those rolls.

DarthNater

Looks great so far. I would mix up that fur a bit more, it screams symmetry

ivanushka

Make those legs bulkier and it'll compliment the top-heavy bear's physique well. Good job so far, looking forward to updates.

whipSwitch

maybe you'll have better luck than i did, but i wouldn't recommend sculpting the fur. You'll spend as lot of time on it, and it will look pristine as a sculpt, and then look fake and be hell to work with once you bake a normal. I might try leaving him furless except for the large masses, then paint it by hand once you have a normal map to integrate it with. that way you'll have an easier time integrating the color variations into it as well.

That will also make it easier to use some alpha planes here and there when you need them, as opposed to trying to match them to the sculpt.

Razvan

I think you went a bit too far with the fur. He looks like he is wearing a fur coat rather than him having fur. You should make it a bit more subtile in my opinion.

vcool

Razvan wrote: »

I think you went a bit too far with the fur. He looks like he is wearing a fur coat rather than him having fur. You should make it a bit more subtile in my opinion.

He's not a bear - he's just a silly man, who needs a shave, and wears a fur coat.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq0a5JTSGvU[/ame]

OrganizedChaos

Thanks for the comments!

Pearson- thanks for pointing that out, I'm working on smoothing out those rings now
DarthNater- I agree- at first I did it to save time, but I think it's worth the extra effort
ivanushka- thanks for the suggestion- I'll definitely try it out once I get this bear part finished
whipSwitch- one of the main reasons behind me doing this was to try my hand at sculpting fur. I figure 3d sculpters didn't have alpha maps, so that's the kind of direction I took with it. I can tell already that it's going to take a lot longer than I planned, and maybe you're right and the normal map will come out badly, if that's the case I'll probably leave him as a sculpt. My time would probably be better off spent making something less charactery for my portfolio considering how difficult character artist positions are to get into.
Razavan- I spent a bit refining the fur a bit further, is this any better?

nrek

looking great Chaos, you are a mad man taking on all that fur lol. I think your on the right track with the fur, but the further down you go it seems like the more rushed you become. The tufts are larger and also don't have the nice tapper as they do up top, you can see the consistent thickness of the claytubes brush. Other than that all i have to say is keep up the good work.

9skulls

For some reason it looks a bit like ... like a sheep to me :P You know that curly sheep fur? :P

Despite of that, that model looks great so far!

conte

yeah, he is bearhorsesheep!
what a creature

OrganizedChaos

Hey guys- I did some more work, keeping what everyone said in mind. I wish Mass Effect 2 wasnt such a great game! Haha, way to take all my time. Do you think this is looking better?

vcool- great little vid, thanks for posting that.

Rwolf

Looks like a shag rug. heh heh.
He still looks top heavy, I would suggest widening the stance of the front legs if it hasn't been suggested already.

And maybe simplified/stylize the fur. Here is a example for a Client I did, didn't like the first approach so I simplified it.

[

OrganizedChaos

Rwolf- I appreciate the suggestion, but while that may work for your client, I don't think that's the kind of look I'm going for. To clarify, here's a sculpture. Edit: although, I see your point on the shag rug and I'll try my best to sort that out now


I agree that it seems a bit top heavy still. I might try reducing the size of the bear half, if that doesn't work, widening the front legs should help, thanks

conte

Rwolf wrote: »

Looks like a shag rug. heh heh.
He still looks top heavy, I would suggest widening the stance of the front legs if it hasn't been suggested already.

And maybe simplified/stylize the fur. Here is a example for a Client I did, didn't like the first approach so I simplified it.

[

Rwolf

conte wrote: »

Well that's completely off topic lol

divi

that makes me laugh so hard

on topic: maybe try the polish brush to define the planes on the fur more.

OrganizedChaos

Off topic or not- that penis face meowmers needed to be posted

How does this look as far as a proportion change goes? (i havent touched the fur)


Divi- thanks for the suggestion- I'll try that out