... finally.
Been too busy working on What They Say. But now that we're in production, most of the work is being done on weekends, so I have a bit more time.
So here he is! The finished beardie.
The base texture painting was done in Mudbox, then the textures were tweaked in Photoshop. I used high-resolution images of my bearded dragon (what else?), shot with my Canon 60D camera.
I originally planned on setting up several diffuse lights to create a small "lighting stage" to shoot my dragon with as few shadows as possible (even, diffuse lighting is essential for proper textures) but on the day of, I stepped outside and realized we had a perfectly overcast day: the kind of day where the light seems to come from all directions and there is absolutely NO hard shadows. So when you see an opportunity like that, it's really best to go for it. I pulled a sheet of glass out of a picture frame, put my lizard on top (so as to get no shadows under the lizard at all), had my buddy hold it while I photographed the hell out of that sucker. The images were great, and everyone was happy... except for the dragon, which ended up getting a bit antsy because it was pretty cold outside that day. Sorry buddy! At least you've been immortalized in 3D.
I'm particularly proud that I could capture the "chubby" nature of his belly and legs. That's my Fish! (named for Wentworth Miller in Prison Break, long story)
And off he goes! To Turbosquid. You can check him out right here:
I'm happy to see some of my earlier uploads from last month have indeed been purchased, so I can see there's at least a bit of a market for high-quality stuff that I produce. As bearded dragons are fairly common lizard pets, I'm hoping he'll be pretty popular.
What's next? Well, I could create several color variations for him, as more colorful beardies are more valued. And of course I could rig him, which would increase his value greatly. I could also create a custom displacement map which would really help the scales pop; I would say this is the greatest visual deficiency right now. But for now, I will let him lie fallow. Maybe start on a sugar glider model :) So cute.
Radek
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