"I want you to have it” Said the girl, with a smile on her face. “What is it?” Asked the creature with curiosity.“I know you don’t need it. But I also know you like these kind of things. It’s a piece done by the Capital’s best artisan. You know... With the ongoing conflict back at the city...” Her smile faded “I may not be able to come here so often. That’s why I wanted to give you this.” The creature gazed into her eyes.
The Beast contest thread - The Manticore
ngon master
...
“Thank you. It’s truly beautiful. But please... Take care”
Full Shot:
Beauty Shot:
(This is the one I'm submitting)
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Plus an extra one:
Texture Sheets:
Textures used:
- Body - 1x4k
- Wings - 1x4k
- Tail, horns - 1x4k
- Mane and fur - 1x2k
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- Pedestal - 1x2k
Wires:
Whew, so, that's all! I'm glad this is over! I'd like to have made a ton more of corrections, there are a lot of mistakes but honestly I'm quite tired of this model. Maybe in the future I'll revisit it but for now I'll forget it for some time. Anyways it was great participating on this, it was a good exercise and I loved getting all that feedback. Best of luck to all!
-Nat
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ORIGINAL POST
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Here’s what I have so far!:
Creature
After thinking for a bit, I decided to base my entry on one of my favourite mythological creatures: The manticore. The manticore is a mythological beast with a lion body, human-like face and a scorpion tail. They’re often depicted with wings and horns. Here are some of the references I gathered for myself:
I like to
think about manticores as intelligent beings: they may have a lion body, but their
mind is very human-like, kind of like a Sphinx could be. Despite their looks,
they can think, feel and talk. They still retain feral characteristics and
prefer to live in the wild, isolated from humans (Disliking technology and
civilized life, probably seeing humanity as a destroyer of nature), But they could perfectly establish a conversation or socialize
with any human they trusted.
Using this as base, I thought about the idea of a manticore feeling despair because of what he is: not fully a human, but not an animal either. What if he enjoyed the company of humans above of his clan’s? What if he despised his animalistic nature? He would be seen as some kind of traitor, and probably be condemned to live in isolation.
Mood
Sadness and despair would two concepts I’d like to depict. The creature will have some kind of defeated pose/expression. The scene will take place in the wild, which will be shown making use of the pedestal. I’d like the manticore to be contrasted with the surroundings. Maybe it will have a very dark pelt, almost black, in contrast with the greenish, fresh environment. My idea is to depict him as being strong, menacing and dangerous, but shattered and melancholic.
I sketched two little pictures to show possible ideas for the scene:
This one depicts the beast holding something very valuable to him, possibly given as a present by a human girl, one he holded very dearly. Maybe they can never be together again and he mourns her in silence.
I’d like to show great contrast between the delicate, golden ornament (still undesigned) and the furry, dark, and strong beast.
This one is just a rough doodle, but I liked the idea of the beast staring at his own reflection with a melancholic expression on his face, probably wishing to be something else.
That’s all
for now. Thanks for reading, and looking forward to think about more ideas and
start sculpting! 
-Natalia
Replies
Here's my first update! After thinking for some time, and because of the intricacy of the first pose, I thought the best way to execute it would be to directly model it in some kind of symmetric pose so that I wouldn't have to force the rig too much, for example:
Now, thinking about it again, I'm not entirely sure this is the path I'll follow. I certainly find it easier to sculpt details on a standard pose, so what I'll probably end up doing is just sculpt the creature on four legs and then transpose it on the go. One thing is clear, the tail will be a separate mesh and there's a possibility the wings will be too, to make things easier. I can use some fur to easily hide the union points between the meshes.
In any case, I started blocking out the head:
More updates coming soon!
Thanks for reading!
-Nat
Looking forward to see more.
Here are some more wips! I finally decided to separately sculpt the different body parts with their final/almost final pose. Today I started defining the body and general volumes. I tried to merge lion and human anatomy as best as I could while remaining faithful to my sketch, though sculpting on the posed model was hard. I may change the anatomy and proportions later, nothing here is final!
Still exploring horn and mane shapes. A lot of tweaking/testing/fixing to do, but for today, I'm done!
Here's a turnaround with all the subtools active:
Thanks for reading!
-Nat
So far my only crit would be that perhaps the rib cage feels quite short and flares out a little too much too early (basically he/she would never be able to put their arm at their sides.
I think you could get away with lengthening the body a touch and pulling down the ribs.
Just my two cents. Either way I dig it.
Here are today's updates. I tried modifying the anatomy a bit according to your suggestions:
The general changes I made are - 1) Made the body a bit longer and the rib cage narrower, and 2) Made the general shape/muscles more bulky and slighty larger in comparison with the head. I don't know if these changes are noticeable or if they're too subtle, but I do like this anatomy better!
Other than that, I just worked on defining the muscles and mane a little bit more. Gotta thank my dog Charlie for this awesome hind leg reference:
It really helped
Here are some more images of the sculpt so far:
Same pose with mane/fur and upper horns:
And the turnaround with all the subtools active:
As always, thanks for reading! And feel free to leave your feedback!
-Nat
This is my favourite entry so far , keep killing it hehe
Image with dog anato:
Nicod, thank you! and yes, I completely understand. I do think the same, (Check out this Reign of Fire maquette if you haven't, it's one of my favourite figures ever http://files.tested.com/photos/2014/01/16/57349-reign.jpg ) but I also think doing the wings unrealistically small is a "necessary evil" if I pretend the manticore to be the main focus. None of the wings depicted in those references I posted is realistic, but they add a lot of aesthetic value. So I guess these would be more of an "ornament" or a "vestige" rather than a functional thing. I may make them a bit bigger though, and try to find a better balance between aesthetic and realism, so that it doesn't look too odd!
Thanks for your comments!
If you don't mind I did a quick paintover. Small things really.
Please feel free to ignore these suggestions....but if you don't I hope it helps.
This is one of my favorite entries....sooo cool.
more please
Thank you, Tadow!
-Nat
Here's the latest update!
Reworked the face and expression a bit. Slightly changed some proportions to make it look more similar to the sketch. Horns may not be final, still experimenting with shapes and sizes.
Also enlarged the wings a teensy bit
That's all for now. G'night all!
-Nat
Looks fab so far, can`t wait to see this baby textured !
if i may add ..
the legs looks a bit weak compared to the ripped torso and arms, mainly the length and the size of the thigh ( rectus femoris, vastus medials which they would be visible from that pose ) same for the Calves ,, then you can add your cool stretchy skin on top.
hands might need more work in terms of size and proportions, try to achieve the C shape with thumb and the rest of the fingers, also avoid lining up the 3 fingers all together, i guess you need a bit of a curve from front profile ( mid finger sits higher ) .. also a bit wider definition to the hips ? a hint for the lliac crest ..
maybe add more definition to the upper 3 bones of the wings if you wanna call it wrist i guess !? not sure , but it will show how strong they are since there are 3 joints connected, maybe stronger elbows as well, in my personal own taste the humerus looks a muscle rather a bone .. but if thats what you are going for thats cool
you might be working on these already anyways .. love it .. cant wait to see it finished mate
Thanks everyone for your comments and to NIGHTWOODWOLF for that detailed critique!
I've basically worked on fixing some anatomy as you suggested, but don't know if I succeeded. Sculpting the leg muscles is certainly difficult for me, as I don't know how would they look in this pose so I just have to look at a bunch of references, guess and improvise. I hope that at least I made them look a little better:
I'm not working on detailing the neck that much as it'll be covered by alpha cards, unless I suddenly decide otherwise! I'm not 100% satisfied with the legs, so I'll probably keep trying to define them more.
I also started detailing the skin. Here are a couple of upper-body closeups
Thinking about adding some kind of golden decorations to the horns. Having some material contrast will be nice.
And here's a full body screenshot including the wings. They still remain a bit undetailed:
Sooo that's how's it looking for now! I'll keep working on the details and start sculpting the tail soon.
As always, feel free to leave any feedback!
Thanks!
-Nat