Welcome to digitalflint.com - This site features artwork created by Emmanuel Flint

Alien Character Model - Desert Dweller (on an imaginary planet of course)

One day I was thinking that it would be nice to create a fairly detailed character model and use it as a means for practicing some new animating and rigging techniques that I was interested in applying. Sometimes self-produced work is harder to start let alone finish, when you are working on other projects and trying to address miscellaneous things in life. Traditional art is still my favorite type of art and I always begin every digital project by creating a rich foundation of sketches, drawings and paintings to solidify all major concepts. I try as much as possible to facilitate a smooth transition between the traditional and digital stages of development. Apparently, this makes the final visual product(s) look much more profound.

Figures A and B are two initial sketches that I created for this character. I had been doing some rough doodles here and there however; the images you see on the right were the most significant drafts at the time. Unfortunately, I was not able to follow up on these sketches until about 3 weeks later, due to a very busy schedule. One thing I like to do in such times is sketch in my head so-to-speak. It is something that I do on occasion (a habit I developed in middle school), when I don't have a lot of time. In the course of those particular weeks I would think about how this character would look in terms of stature, color and height. How would he behave, walk, talk and interact with his environment? These are all key things in trying to create the illusion of life in an animated character. Prior to the modeling stage I was not considering any other technical aspects for production, besides the initial mesh resolution.

Figure A

Figure B


	Due to the fact that I have been modeling for some time now, I have accumulated multiple geometrical assets that I sometimes use as base shapes to save production time. In this particular case I found one of the old human heads that had created a few months prior and made adjstments in the mesh topology to comply with the structural requirements of my design. Figures C and D help illustrate the changes that were made. I tend to have better results when I make such changes in a standard modeling environment - as would be found in Maya, 3dsmax or XSI. Even though Zbrush played a big role in the final out come of this character's look, I tend to run into problems with trying to make significant topological changes in this application (when I using Zbrush 2.0 or 3.0). However, with the advent of Zbrush 3.1's topology editing tools, such concerns are moot; even the messiest mesh can be reorganized to have nice flowing edge loops.


	Figure C		Figure D
	Before Mesh Modification - 5805 Quadrangulated faces		After Mesh Modification - 8416 Quadrangulated faces


	Working in Zbrush is always my favorite part in the modeling process. In comparison with the cumbersome process of manually moving around points in either the X, Y or Z axis, Zbrush eliminates that mechanical feeling which permeated the standard modeling process. Zbrush is also a life saver when it comes to texturing, because one can paint a texture and visualize its look on a character simultaneously. Ain't it cool?! Below is a progressive image of what the mesh looked like at each sub division level. The final result was 2.129 million polygons to accommodate the details for this character's head. All the detail was later captured in a displacement map for rendering.

			One of the design goals that I had was to make the creature look slightly reptilian while incorporating some organic shapes around certain key places on his cranium. I saw some rock formations that inspired some of the details that look like fluvial erosion, on the top and side of his head. Lastly, I wanted to accentuate the flow of his facial muscles along with the skin around his neck and forehead. I sought to keep most of the details subtle enough so that he did not end up looking too menacing, or monstrous. Below you will find some links to higher resolution images that were later rendered after the texturing phase was completed. The average texture resolution was 4096 x 4096. However, I painted an 8k bump map that later had to be reduced to 6000x6000 because the computer that I was using at the time could not handle it. Fortunately, I was able to use the 8k map when I upgraded my processor and motherboard. In addition to that I switched to a 64bit operating system.

Hmmm... Soon, I will update this feature gallery with some images that show the rest of his body. However, I hope you have enjoyed what you've seen so far. Since the character model is complete, the next step is rigging. I plan on incorporating set driven morph targets, a muscle system and other cool stuff into the rig for this character. There will also be an implementation of FK/IK arm and leg chains (I hope).

When the rig is complete I will post some animation tests in the Animation Section of this site.

Thank you,

Emmanuel Flint