[WIP] Novice / Anthro-Dragon Character Sculpt with Blender

Rasheth

A happy hello everyone from my side! Just call me Rash, I am M28, living in 🇩🇪 Heidelberg.

Normally, I have no business with 3D at all. My main job is IT Sales Consultant, as a second profession I perform as a DJ, besides that I also like to write stories and draw (Procreate/Photoshop). You could say, a little creative spirit who now wants to crown his repertoire with a trip into the 3D world! :-) I have started last autumn (really from scratch, without any prior knowledge), when I decided to dedicate a nice 3D model to my fictional dragon character 'Rasheth' and bring it to life. So going through the complete pipeline; learning everything necessay. Inital work done in Sculptris, now I am a Blender 2.8 enthusiast. This is a pure hobby project, not meant to reach cinematic or aa-game level at all. So far my current progress:

Looking pretty patriotic sinister considering his colors, huh? But seriously, I am a lover of the dark side, hurhur... Certainly, this lad will need some fine-tuning in a few details, the sporty, alien/feline/dragonic-hybrid anatomy suits my aesthetic preferences but is not 100% accurate for sure - as long as he will be able to make halfway fluent movements once rigged, I'm quite satisfied.

Rasheth

(removed)

BagelHero

Since you're a hobbyist who isn't really looking to have a perfect sculpt or whatever; yeah, looking good. I will note that if you're interested in having this rigged for VRchat or applying some premade animations or something, you may be better off having the palms facing downwards instead of out/towards the camera, but if you intend on animating from scratch you're good.

But... unless you're considering paid work you should probably be looking to have someone explain topo to you in a way you can digest, not trying to get someone else to do it for you. Anyone who will pick it up for free here will not be a professional in most cases (as they are busy with work, and only come here to lend assistance at best), and you will likely end up with something equivalent to the sort of result you'd get learning it yourself anyhow. If you want to trade with someone in the furry community you may have more luck, actually! Lots of lovely semi-professionals who are happier to do things for equivalent trade or for fun because they like your character.

Honestly speaking, Polycount is better for critique than hobbyist collaboration is what im trying to get at. If you want to post your attempts at retopo as you go or highlight where you feel you're getting frustrated or stuck, we can correct them and help you fix them so they're as perfect as you need them to be-- but trying to find people to do it with/for you might be tougher here.

Good luck and cheers, sorry if I come across a bit blunt. just dont want to see you left hanging.

Rasheth

Thank you very much for your response, BagelHero!

Animation is planned from scratch within the Blender environment (Rigify or ARP) indeed, I might port it to Daz3D and Unity afterwards, eventually, but it is not of priority. I can still rotate the lower arms and hands more inwards, thanks for the tip!

I consider it as small paid work job, maybe for a young professional or advanced hobbyist with solid retopo experience, who is out of workload or simply bored at the moment (dunno how severely Corona is affecting the 3D-industry). I can't competete with studio-level payment, otherwise I am not targeting experts. More like this guy here: https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2515925 who obviously got some responses. Setting a fair price though is tricky. If said person managed to do it within 3-4 hours, that payment seemed okayish, if in 2-3 full days, definetly not. Last thing I want here is to sponge on somebody.

Second option is to pull myself together and simply tackle doing it in Retopoflow, then asking for feedback. The vast amount of Retopo references is just overwhelming, there doesn't seem to be the 'perfect' poly alignment, and the dragon's head and tail make things more complicate. One good cheat tho are his arm- and legrings. They could camoflauge certain things (like UV seams, later) and wont deform.

kanga

In game art sculpting the figure is really only a small part of the picture. Nonetheless, the base has to be good. Monsters are a really difficult way to start because you can convince yourself that it is an interpretation. Also sculpting in Blender has the disadvantage of not being able to decrease subdivision levels without loosing detail. You can learn it tho.

If I was you I would concentrate on sculpting standard figures before working on monsters. The best reference  I have found is a free 3d app called Daz You can customize a figure and rotate it around as reference while working.

Have fun!

Rasheth

Thanks for the replies so far. Unfortunatelly, I wanted to post something before, but for whatever reasons it went 'under moderation' or something and never appeared again...

@BagelHero
Thank you so far! I will rotate the palms / lower arms accordingly. Animation is planned via Blender (ARP/Rigify), only basic stuff first like idle, walking, stretching, etc.
I do consider payed help indeed, directed to experienced hobbiysts or semiprofessional junior freelancers, who already have some routine in proper retopology and looking for a side-job atm. Small jobs options like that seem to exist here, though it has to be known, if an artist needs 3 hours or 3 days for my boy - in second case, I would rather try it myself instead of providing an unsufficent payment. I will posts screenshots then, asking for you feedback ('oh no, all those stars and spirals!')

kanga
Oh yes, I know and actually have Daz3D Studio as well, and I have used that and various online example renderings as references. As said, I do not benefit from 100% anatomy accuracy, the model is only for myself, I am totally fine if his retopo and rig harmonize well together, enabling smooth movements for some basic animations. I do not plan to create further characters, thus I didn't invest additional times in creating human characters as practise. The main mesh is based on a generic human body anyway. Paws, tail and head are unique additions (and they were quite fun to sculpt)! Thanks for your reply as well!

kanga

Ah ok. Looks like you had a lot of fun with this piece.