Can You Recommend Any Comprehensive Creature Modelling Tutorial / Course?

Lifelover

Hey guys,

I'm looking for tutorials that explain in detail modelling creatures (example: Zhelong Xu's Chi-Dragon ). Particularly, what interests me is techniques for building interesting shapes, custom alphas / vector displacement maps and creating balance between low - mid and high frequency detail.

I know Gnomon offers some creature courses but they seem to be far from the stuff that I'd like to master; Zhelong'swork is a good reference point. 

Alex_J

The only comprehensive tutorial is to do all of them. Two heads are better than one, right. Seven heads are even better. 

Besides Gnomon, I know there is a few here and there on gumroad, though I don't have them saved. But if you go through all of the tutorials from as many artist as you can find, you are easily going to have all the technical competence to make whatever you can imagine. As to the style and artistic sense, I don't know I have honestly never seen a tutorial that really covered content like that. You might look for concept artist tutorials, which will be 2d tool focused but may cover more of the design thought process. I've done a few photoshop tutorials just to learn the UI a bit better and surprisingly picked up some nice tips for improving artistic sense and so on.

I think it's just a matter of lots of iteration to learn how to express your own unique style. Of course, following another's way of doing is a skill you got to have, so maybe just continuing to analyze this artists' work and trying to mimic it is the best/only way to go.

Brian "Panda" Choi

@Lifelover
So you want creature tutorials that skew towards East Asian influenced designs?

Lifelover

@Brian "Panda" Choi

Well, not  necessarily. I am fascinated by his smart way of delivering unique shapes that are seemingly not that complicated yet taking it from a distant perspective at the whole, the end design is spectacular (and intricate). 

sacboi

Michael Pavlovich comes too mind, his High-Res Creature Production series is quite comprehensive:

https://gumroad.com/pavlovich

Creature Production By Pavlovich 

Part 1 High Res Creation: 

69 videos, 8 hours 13 minutes

Part 2 Game Res Process: 

87 videos, 8 hours 8 minutes

Bonus:

20 videos, 2 hours 9 minutes

.zip files of all video sections for easy downloading

Part 1 High Res Videos:

Blockout:

• 19:55 Blockout Overview
  
• 05:37 Setup
  
• 16:00 Basic Brushes Part 1 & 2  
• 21:08 Rough Blockout Part 1 & 2 
• 04:26 Subtool Dynamesh
  
• 12:29 ZSphere Base Body
  
• 33:03 Body Blockout Part 1 - 5
  
• 05:05 Dynamesh Resolution 
• 07:30 Head Unit Plane
  
• 02:47 Transpose Head Units 
• 03:39 Polygroup Masking 
• 03:24 Evaluating Silhouette 
  
• 04:56 Materials And Lights
  

Refine Sculpt:

• 1:14:10 Overview Part 1 - 5
  
• 20:03 Splitting And Refining Head Part 1 & 2
  
• 09:31 Eyeballs And Rough Teeth
  
• 08:53 Mouth Flap And Tongue
  
• 04:55 Form Exploration And Sinew
  
• 05:24 Horns
  
• 08:59 Teeth
  
• 04:05 Secondary Details
  
• 10:47 Custom Insert Scales Brush
  
• 02:52 Thickness Close Holes
  
• 02:16 Thickness Extraction
  
• 02:38 Thickness ZRemesh And Project  
  
• 03:08 Thickness Morph Diff
  
• 06:27 Nanomesh Scales Topology
  
• 06:36 Nanomesh Scales Polygroups
  
• 06:22 Nanomesh Scales Application
  
• 07:06 Applying Back Scales
  
• 05:47 Thick Skin Details
  
• 07:05 ZRemesh And Project
  
• 09:53 Skin Direction
  
• 01:12 ZRemesh Teeth
  
• 06:06 Alpha Skin Detailing
  
• 05:27 Custom Skin Alphas
  
• 02:02 Layers And Morph Targets  
  
• 06:49 Surface Noise
  
• 08:07 Curve Brush Gills 
  
• 08:59 Claws
  
• 05:18 Finger Grips  

Polypainting:

• 16:45 Polypaint Overview
  
• 05:41 Polypaint Basics
  
• 03:45 Skin Mottling
  
• 11:48 Skin Layering Part 1 & 2
  
• 03:33 Cavity Masking
  
• 03:38 Cavity Painting
  
• 01:30 Brush Color Modes
  
• 07:20 Building Up Scales
  
• 03:47 Adding Detail
  
• 01:49 Testing Ideas
  
• 03:52 Material Painting
  
• 02:06 Post Effects Filters
  
• 03:01 Basic Lighting
  
• 05:15 Spotlight Texturing

Part 2 Game Res Videos:

Retopology:

• 19:05 Retopology Overview
  
• 07:21 Topology Review
• 03:47 Mouthbag Creation
• 03:54 ZRemesh for Animation
• 06:21 Polypaint Guides
• 03:09 ZSphere Topology
• 06:03 Poypainting Body Topology
• 07:10 Reptile Topology Flow
• 12:55 ZSphere Retopology
  
• 06:02 ZRemesh
  
• 11:02 Zremesh Cleanup
  
• 04:19 Crash Recovery And Fixes
  
• 07:00 Exporting Bake And Resurface Meshes
  
• 04:38 Assigning And Exporting Mat IDs
  
• 05:08 Maya Scene Organization
  
• 04:06 Live Mesh Setup
  
• 04:23 Modeling Live Append To Polygon
  
• 05:23 Modeling Live Transfer And Tweak
  
• 04:39 Modeling Live Edge Operations
  
• 07:24 Modeling Live Cleanup And Mirror
  
• 02:38 Modeling Live Symmetry And Soft Select
  
• 05:36 Quad Draw Part 1
  
• 04:20 Quad Draw Part 2
• 03:46 Topology And Constraints
  
• 09:46 Redirecting Flow
  
• 07:55 Duplicating And Snapping Fingers
  
• 03:09 Primitive Snapping

UVs:

• 09:28 Reptile UVs And Bake Overview
  
• 23:47 Headus Part 1-3
  
• 05:10 Maya UV Setup
  
• 06:15 Maya Basics
  
• 05:07 Checker Utilities
  
• 07:23 Maya UV Window
  
• 04:45 Texel Density
  
• 05:43 Packing And Texture Sizes
  
• 04:48 Finish Maya Packing
  
• 03:45 Maya Auto UV
  
• 08:23 Maya Cut Pin Unfold
  
• 08:50 Surface Normals
  
• 07:12 ZBrush UV Master
  
• 01:04 Exporting Low
  

Baking:

• 07:57 Multi Baking In Painter
  
• 05:05 XNormal Setup And Maps
  
• 06:06 Ray Distance And Cage
  
• 00:13 XNormal Save Settings
  
• 04:06 Corrective Bakes
  
• 07:11 Photoshop Map Compositing
  
• 03:44 Viewing Maps In Maya
  
• 02:51 Exporting Game Model
  
• 03:17 Baking Auxillary Maps
  
• 03:03 UV Snapshot
  
• 05:59 Baking Maps In ZBrush
  
• 02:13 Baking Maps In Maya
  
• 02:35 Knald
  

Texturing:

• 14:06 Texturing Overview
  
• 10:13 Texturing Overview Variants
  
• 02:26 PBR Resources
  
• 06:09 Painter 2 Overview And Setup
  
• 08:36 Texture Map Explanations
  
• 04:31 Plugging In Maps
  
• 03:44 PBR Basics
  
• 03:48 Materials Tab
  
• 06:42 Custom Material Base Color
  
• 05:31 Custom Material Height And Roughness
  
• 04:29 Custom Smart Material
  
• 04:34 Smart Material Dissection
  
• 08:46 Belly And Back Skin
  
• 03:05 Back Skin Procedural Mask
  
• 05:33 Brush Basics
  
• 03:12 Mask Filters
  
• 01:40 Polypaint As Base Color
  
• 14:08 Texturing Areas Part 1 & 2
  
• 03:52 Projection
  
• 03:25 Quick Mask
  
• 05:56 Custom Alpha And Stitches
  
• 04:10 Custom Brick And Tri-Planar Projection
  
• 05:54 SSS And Transmission
  
• 03:21 Emissive And AO Channels
  
• 04:49 Painter Walkthrough And Render
  
• 06:08 Texture Variants
  
• 02:09 Particle Texturing
  
• 04:14 Export Texture Configs
  
• 05:13 Iteration Creation

Rendering:

• 05:09 IRAY Render
  
• 05:31 Marmoset Setup And Lighting
  
• 03:10 Painter Octane Export
  
• 04:07 Octane Materials
  
• 03:33 Assigning Textures
  
• 04:49 Render Target
  
• 07:13 Lighting Environments
  
• 04:04 Octane Camera And Export

Bonus Section for Part 1 & 2 Bundle Purchase:

• 11:14 Pose And Column Sculpt Overview
  
• 03:02 Transpose Master Setup
  
• 02:10 Adding Reference Meshes
  
• 11:40 Mask And Transpose
  
• 03:02 Transferring And Cleanup
  
• 02:04 Transpose Envelope Discussion
  
• 05:05 Fine Tuning The Envelope
  
• 06:00 Transpose Envelope
  
• 03:27 ZModeler Column
  
• 07:36 Column Blockout
  
• 05:57 Column Refine
  
• 07:28 Plastered Brick
  
• 08:36 Rune Stone Alphas
  
• 04:12 Rune Stones Array
  
• 08:50 Column Destruction
  
• 03:16 3D Print Export And Cleanup
  
• 06:38 3D Print Supports And Print
  
• 02:31 3D Prints
  
• 08:47 ZBrush Render Passes
  
• 08:10 Photoshop Compositing