Tai Lung

Tai Lung
A project I had made for my Advanced Character class at Ferris State University!
THE PROCESS:
For this project I had initially used Zbrush to create the high poly. This didnt take too terribly long, since I knew everything after high poly would take much longer. Also Tai Lung was a pretty blocky character, so it didnt take too long.
I then took it into Blender to retopologize and also model some things that didnt need to be in the high poly, (like the claws and belt details.) In this stage I also revisited the teeth. I was taking way too long to retopologize the teeth, and knew I would get way better results if I just remade them with hard surface modelling, then trying to retopo the already sculpted ones. I also then sorted out the smoothing groups and unwrapped the model.
I then Took tai Lung into Substance painter. The biggest challenges I faced while texturing the model was some issues I had created for my future self during retopo, which ultimately led me to take a step backwards during my texture process. Which then I had to restart my texturing process from scratch. Other than that, the bigger general challenges I faced on Tai Lung was His spots not being symmetrical and figuring out how to do patterns on the pants for the first time.
After this, I then took the Model back into Blender and began the biggest challenge I knew I would have with this model. Tackling the challenge of learning how to do fur. While I learned how to do the fur, I learned how to do the 2 primary methods of doing fur in blender though. I learned the Empty curve method, and the particle method(which is the version I ended up using on tai lung). I also utilized Vertex groups in order to get certain lengths I wanted with a cleaner look with the time given.
While Also in blender, I also rigged Tai Lung. During making the high poly though I made the mistake of making the arms connect too low as the torso, and it this point with the time given it was too late to fix. I rigged it though with enough time given to give a little extra life to the character during the turnaround. I also used Shapekeys to give more flexability when taking shots of the character, to also give more life. A range of these Shapekeys include Breathing, lowering Eyebrows, squinting, a ear perking up, blinking, and the eyes also moving left and right.
The last part of the character project was rendering. This was the biggest challenge I had faced that I did not expect to face. With the amount of particle Systems on this model, in order to get a successful turnaround of it, it had taken 9 hour. About 3 hours into those 9 hours, I had to borrow 2 more computers, on top of the one I had already been using, in order to get a successful turnaround done. This doesn't even include the unsuccessful attempts turnarounds, or accumulated time to getting shots just used for the sheets featured.