How in the world should I do this..?

GavinUnit

Hello, I've been working on a character from a design by Peter de Seve, the Duchess of Whimsy, and I really have no idea how I should do the plume thingy on the top of her head. I figured I would just do it in Zbrush then bring it into Maya but that was before I learnt about the need to retopologize, and considering I already have to retopologize a bunch of other things I don't have time for, I don't think that's an option.
My teacher says I should just make each piece of the feathers individually then place and deform them one by one. I really -don't- have time to go thru and do that, nor would I really want to... tho I'm afraid this is my only option.
How would you guys do it?

*edit - and to clarify, I'm talking about the big white feathery thing on her head...

whipSwitch

Don't misunderstand me here, but You don't seem to have done it before, so how you can accurately gauge whether or not you have time to do it. Why not try your teacher's method? Because it sounds hard and time consuming?

TRY IT. FUCK IT UP. LEARN. That's really what you are in school for....

GavinUnit

I did the feather in Zbrush already, its a bit rough, but I've gotten the shapes and flow that I want.
Right now I am working on retoping the hair that I brushed (side note, is there a way to make the transparency of the mesh in ZB4 not suck when retoping? I tried the draw settings but cant quite find anything that works out), and I need to brush and make normals for finer details in the corset, dress and a bust I'm working on.

I realize that I should TRY things and FUCK THEM UP, I do agree (and thanks for trying to push me, in a good way :P), but i'm currently in crunch for an animation production which is top priority over my character modeling. I was just wondering if anyone had any input on how THEY would go about making the feathery plume thing.

h6x6n

not much of a modeler, but I'll help you on rigging when you get to that point. pm me if you want a bit of assistance, I may forget to check this thread, but I'd love to help

Ruz

you could build it as a mass and use alphas in zbrush to stamp the detail on or displace your mesh. It's a bit quick and dirty but may work. I did some fur collars this way and it worked great