Snake Statue

SnarG

Hey all, nice to finally meet you... I've been watching from afar for some time now

I was hoping some creative spark here might be able to nudge me in the right direction with this statue piece I was working on. I've roughed in the concept I had in mind but it just doesn't seem to be popping.

It's situated at the top of a bridge, like can be seen in the second screenshot, but frankly in its current state it looks kinda ridiculous, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Armonio

Hey there, I'm not the greatest modeler out there, but the snakes look like tubes. Snakes are bigger in the front, then slowly degrade to a tiny tip on their tail. It looks good so far, keep it up.

Good luck!

Mcbiskit

I think you should have the snakes bodies come down and be coiled together. Maybe you can have the snakes coiled around the person and about to bite him.

I dunno, just tossing some ideas.

Em.

I think one of the biggest problems is the anatomy of your snakes, they look a lot more like snakes rolled from play dough right now rather than real snakes. Real snakes bodies aren't the same width all the way down might also want to make the heads look more menacing. Snagged a couple of pics off google:
http://www.crestock.com/images/420000-429999/429971-xs.jpg
http://www.minammotel.com/Images/130x150SnakeStriking.jpg

The pose of the guy looks a bit stiff too for being torn apart by snakes. Maybe you could have the one in the back coiled around his waist looking up at his face and the other two about to strike, one high one low. Overall I think the whole thing could be a lot more dynamic, snakes bodies are all muscle and spie so they tend to make some really awesome dynamic poses. Keep it up.

Zwebbie

If you haven't already, check out the Laocoon group. It's the first thing that I thought of when seeing your model and it's unarguably an effective and striking statue.

I also think that there's no way your statue would hold up if it were made from a kind of stone. You can't hang such a weighty piece to be supported by two measly snake bodies - they'd have enough trouble keeping themselves from breaking!

SnarG

Thanks for the responses guys. The image I posted was just a mockup of the basic concept and I hadn't started working on the final model, hence why the snakes are blatantly just cylinders!

My concept is that a three-headed snake (a symbol for the snake-worshippers who inhabit the fortress this bridge is the entrance to) is overcoming a king. The statue is to be more symbolic than realistic, but obviously play-dough snakes attacking action-man is not the final look I'm going for either :P

I did think the guy was posed a little rigidly, so thanks for confirming that oglemeanimations.

I knocked this together quickly last night and wondered what peoples' thoughts might be of this as an alternative design:



That is a very striking statue ComradeJ, but given my time limits and modest skills at character modelling I think perhaps too much of a challenge. I appreciate the inspiration nonetheless.

_Aurel_

I think you're doing a nice job with the figure and the head of the snakes, but the bottom where they all meet looks weird to me. Maybe you can model the snakes wrapping around each other instead of having themselves intersect like that?

SnarG

I redesigned my statue to what you can see in the following screenshot. I know it's highly improbable because of the large amount of weight being held aloft but I'm willing to suspend disbelief in the name of fantasy for this piece.

I did put in some twisted-metal support rods which aren't in this UE3 grab but I'm still not sure if they'll make it into the final mesh on the basis that I'm quite liking the silhouette without them. I'd welcome any comments anyone had to make.

Snader

how about curling the snake up and/or making its body thicker? right now the snake seems rather disporportionate

also. the snake seems to be resting on the man's arms instead of the man being clenched by the snake

Turoid

Snader wrote: »

also. the snake seems to be resting on the man's arms instead of the man being clenched by the snake

Agreed. Also add some weight to the snake. It floats in the air too much, make it sit on the ground . Imagine if you were that snake, how would you keep yourself balanced in a pose like this?

almighty_gir

a snake can only lean about 2/3 of its body out, and the rest needs to be anchored...