Feline Engineer
The Pose
Rigging and posing the model was difficult due to the non-human anatomy and application of weightpaint causing interesting deformations in the groomable splines used for the fur. But after a while, one of two poses was decided on; namely the less offensive one.
The Fur...
The most frustrating part of modelling this character was the application of Fur. The ZBrush hair modelling and grooming tools were powerful and would be ideal for longer hair, but I found them impractical and difficult to use on the shorter fur. I also found the Fur setup in Maya did not like the Arnold renderer that much, and eventually decided to use XGen Groomable Splines. The tools were frustrating to use because there was no way to undo any changes to the splines. this meant that saving the Maya file was the only way to ensure getting back to a previous state, and resulted in over 20 different files during the process.
Final Clothed Model
Once the High Poly body was created, the clothes were added with a combination of extracting the surfaces in Zbrush, and importing appropriate shaped files from Maya.
High Poly Model
This is the final state after working the anatomy in using Zbrush. Muscle structure was setup using the previous muscle orthographics as well as googled photographical reference. The small deformations around the chest and deltoids are imprints from the clothing added in the next step. The head was also resized to fit with the more realistic modelling.
Low Poly Blockout
This is the state to which I got the model before taking her from Maya into ZBrush, where I will be able to work in finer detail on muscle definition and fur texture.
Anatomy
Du to the hybrid nature of the half-lioness half-human character, fleshing out the bone and muscle structure was required to get the right feel, and make sure the musculature for the most part would be in the theorhetically 'correct' places.
Advanced Concept
A more fleshed out concept work on what the final clothed character will hopefully look like. The large adjustable spanner would require some padding or a holster to carry it, and I opted for the padded shoulder guard, designed to be alternated from one side to the other each shift so as to avoid long tem back issues. The kneepads allow for ease of work on rougher surfaces while the thick gloves prevent the engineer from being affected by the occasional drop of hot oil or spurt of steam.
Initial Concept
Starting with some basic poses, I chose one I felt looked strong and furthered refining the shape. Deciding the shape of the wrench took up most of my time, with the eventual decision being on a 'shifter' style wrench.
Once the basic costume and pose was decided on I went ahead and sketched up a final concept.