The Dire Wolf ( Student Project) Help Wanted

wolfonthehorizon

Hey guys for my university assignment I have been asked to e create a prehistoric creature.... that's as far as the brief goes I have complete choice over what I create XD so i decided to create THE DIRE WOLF

Spec - the wolf will be for a game engine and will be presented in UDK
Tri limit - 12,000
Texture Size - 2048 x 2048

if you would like to know more about this Beast watch this its very interesting

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V7hDJvkzjw"]Prehistoric Predators: Dire Wolf - YouTube[/ame]



to start with I gathered some visual reference of both the Dire wolf and its cousin the Grey wolf , why the grey you ask ? well the two are almost identical except the dire was alot bigger and obviously with the dire being extinct there are no images of the dire only the grey



scuttle differences such as the size of the skulls have been looked at through the bones found in the tar pits. the humerus and ulna are also bigger on the Dire and weighed up to 70 pounds more.



also looking at how the anatomy of the wolves today can be used to piece together the dire

Problems ...

some things immediately i can see becoming a problem in this project such as the FUR , if anyone has any tips in making hair in UDK will be greatly appreciated.

first thing is to create a base mesh for sculpting LETS DO THIS

wolfonthehorizon

This is my sculpting progress so far, im sticking to a really low sub division first off so that i can get the correct form of the creature , once im happy that its overall form is correct i will move into the more fine details

any feedback and crits will be grateful

by the way im relatively new to Z Brush so any great technical tips would need to be explained

thanks XD

Mark Dygert

Cool, I like all of the planning and reference gathering you did. I also like that you aren't rushing up in subdivisions while sculpting.

Crits:
- The legs and feet look good, because there is short hair there and very little fat. The pads on the bottom seem kind of poofy but that might be ok, its hard to tell from these angles.
- I'm not sure how you plan to handle the fur?
- Wolves normally aren't that defined, its like you scraped off the fur and fat and vacuum sealed the skin around the muscle? Horses and other extremely short haired creatures that get extreme workouts, sure you might see that level of definition, but typically not in a wolf which will have a dense coat.
- It's like you took the normal bulk of a wolf + fat and fur and drew muscles on top? Especially in the neck area, that seems overly developed?

wolfonthehorizon

thanks for the advice yeah I understand what you mean the fur is going to be tricky ive considered hair planes or just sculpting them straight onto the model, im favouring more sculpting them on i got some great examples of artists that have done this and the results look great,

yeah wolves arn't im just trying to portray that this isn't a standard wolf, the prehistoric Dire wolves were larger and alot stronger than the Greys, im going to have the fur around the neck , tail and along its back, although this wont be as historically accurate, for my uni assignment if i can demonstrate i have an understanding of the muscle structure of this creature i will get more marks,

the neck yeah i know what you mean it would be alot slimmer as the fur would make up most of the bulk, but this area will be either covered up by hair planes or sculpted fur, i just found that blocking in some neck muscles helped me place the chest and shoulder muscles alot easier

thanks alot i will take abit more care with the feet and leg making sure there spot on before i go any further

wolfonthehorizon

another update on the sculpt comments welcome

[SF]Three9

I think you need to spend more time defining the muscles



No really though, this seems way, way, way overdone and unrealistic even for something stylized or fantasy. I'm not an expert on anatomy, let alone wolf anatomy, but It's so overdone I don't even think it looks correct. I would focus on emphasizing muscle groups instead of each individual muscle. Show off the shoulder and rib and hip as a unit.

Look at the sabertooth Tiger in the first reference pic in the top left. Muscle groups are cut and show power, with smaller muscles being smaller details that help depict how toned and powerful the beast really is. Tone down those details and emphasize the groups (sorry to be so redundant) and I think you'll have a better piece



Also the hair around his neck just looks noisy and muddy. While I'm sure this isn't a complete finished sculpt, there is no overall detail to it that depicts it as the texture of hair


While the face looks pretty good, it looks more demon dog than a regular/dire wolf. The ears should be larger and his dome should come up higher too



While this one I think looks better in the muscle department, your ears here are very triangular and not organic at all. Yes they are triangular shaped, but they won't just just out the way they currently are. It should round outward at the base a tiny bit on both sides.

wolfonthehorizon

another case of me getting carried away haha cheers mate im going to tone him down and emphasise groups rather than individual muscles, as for the fur sections i just tried to give myself something to work with and sculpt on top off , i will re work it a bunch to really emphasise that it is fur.

the face was based on the artists re creation from the documentary I put a link to above which doesn't have your traditional wolf look so to speak, it is more doggish if you know what i mean, thanks for the crits