Hello everyone

I am just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction towards some modelling tutorials based on modelling birds and animals etc. As I am a great lover of the natural and decided that this is where my focus should be when building models and scenes etc.

Any help with this request will be greatly appreciated.

Ian...

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Well, I'm sure there are a few out there but let me ask a few questions:

1. Which animal type interests you the most? Bird/Quadroped/Biped
2. What would be your preferred approach? Sculpt then retopo, box model, or edge model? 
   3.  If I were to do one, would you mind that there could be a week long gap between parts?

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/amouse/amouse01.php
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/makingofshark1/makingofshark1_1.php

Decide on an animal. Get lots of references for that animal or a very similar one. Look for anatomy images if you can find them and also for regular photographs of the animal you're modeling. You will find that often anatomy images show you more muscles than actually show up on the animal when fat and skin is taken into account, so those should be used as guides but be prepared to soften areas.

3D Studio max tutorials are usually the easiest to convert to other applications, so hunt those down if you can. If you can find ones specific to your app of choice, great!

Two useful books:

Animal Anatomy For Artists by Eliot Goldfinger
An Atlas Of Animal Anatomy For Artists by Ellen Berger

Both have excellent illustrations that can be used as modeling references in conjunction with real photos.

Thank you for your replies Teyon.

My range of animals is wide, from insects to fish, mamals to birds and not forgeting the reptile along the way. I have over twenty years of experience regarding drawing animals in the real world using colored pencils and/or pastels but I have found that trying to expand my spectrum to the virtual world of 3d is probably the hardest challenge yet.

The style of modeling is at this moment more a case of experimenting really though I tend to favour a cross between box and edge modeling and then possiblly adding extra detail using a program I have recently found called "Sculptris" (it's nearest my pocket will ever get me to using Zbrush). The programs I use for modeling are essentially Hexagon, Blender (still in the junior stages with this one LOL) and then texturing with carrara7pro.

Thank you for the links and I will check them out as a tutorial for any program can offer ideas and hints regarding the best way for me to go also, thanks for the book ideas and I actually have the first one by "Eliot Goldfinger" but I will check out second one.

Also I would be very grateful should you decide to create some tutorials based around animals and time is no problem with me as I have all the time the world.

Ian...

Cool beans. First, I'll check through my drive to see if I documented my cat model. If I did, then I can get a quick tutorial together. If not, than I'll start something new and document as much as I can while I work. :)  One major thing - and you probably already know this but many don't - this is going to be just my way of doing it (and at that moment I should add). There's lots of ways to approach the same model even using the same method I do.  So don't be afraid to deviate if you find you can do something with fewer polys once I get started. :)

Many thanks for your help with this and I know exactly what you mean because I say exactly the same to those I write tutorials for regarding PC music sequencing. Everyone has to develop their own way other wise it wouldn't be art any more... just a factory of notes and strokes LOL.

I look forward to the first issue..

Ian...