Bunnywabbit goes 3D

Meep meep!

It still needs a few things - like a tail and a sticky-up ear - but it's getting there. I think it'll turn out pretty cute!

UV'd!

I had completely forgotten how soul-destroying this particular part of the workflow is. Oh well - it's done now! There's a little bit of stretching going on in places but I think it'll do.

I think I'll model and UV map the remaining creatures (jackalope and bird) before I start texturing any of them.I could quite happily spend a full year just texturing a couple of meshes, so I want to get the modelling done before I sink too much time into the painting.

Teddy!

Here's a little peek of the bear:

 

I think I'm happy with the model - I haven't really modelled much lately so it's hard to tell. Hopefully it's chunky enough without looking horrible. I'll UV map it tomorrow; now THAT will be interesting...

Birdie

Meep meep!

I'll have a play around with patterns and colours when I texture the final model - this is just a little sheet to help me in Maya. Now that I have my little creature concepts and the scene layout I think I should be good to start modelling... I'll do a few sketches of the props too, but then it's Maya time! Whee!

A little bear

Rawr! I'm really going to enjoy modelling this, I think.

I'm also working on a concept for a little bird, as I'd love to have a flying creature in the scene:

I need to figure out how to make the wings look more simple and handmade... Will go hunting for some references before I carry on :)

A lil' scene!

Here's a quick little render of the scene I'm building in Maya:

Now, these are just mega quick blockout models to give me an idea of the scene layout. I am very aware of the fact that animals aren't actually made up of a series of squished spheres... ;)

I'm slowly reacquainting myself with Maya and it's good fun! I'm slightly scared of modelling the creatures because I haven't done much of that, but I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go along... I found this tutorial which I think will be useful; I think I'll give that technique a go once I have the concept art done.

Even though I'm a bit rusty at Maya and pretty much a newbie at modelling animals I think I'm really going to enjoy this project. The game idea is right up my street and I'm going to have a lot of fun figuring out the visual style. Can't wait for the texturing...!

Bunnywabbit

Some sketches:

A littil bunnywabbit! With antlers!

A bit of botany. I like the mushroom!

Aaand a TINY scene sketch.

I've downloaded and installed Maya today (CRAZY big file size...) and I'm thinking that I should use it to mock up the scene layout with chunky, simple models, rather than sketch in Photoshop. I kind of know what I want in the scene, such as:

Animals
One small creature (jackalope)
One bigger creature (fox/lynx/deer/squirrel/raccoon/bear?)

Objects
Tree
Bushes
Flowers (wild)
Flowers (potted/planted)
Mushrooms
Berries
Weeds
Cotton plants

Background elements
Hill/hills
Sky
Clouds
Sun (rays?)

...etc. So it should be possible for me to create really rough versions of these in Maya and arrange them into a nicely composed scene, and then paint over it.

It's just that I've always been quite horrible at drawing environments and starting with a 3D block-out would help me visualise the scene rather than the individual elements. I used that workflow to create this image back in 1st year (awwh, memories) and it would have been all sorts of awful without the 3D base... But I actually still like it!

Let's just hope I still remember how to use Maya... Eeek!