Bird Number One WIP 3

Here are some screen grabs of the progress today. I was able to add most of the broad facial details in as well as (very) basic wings and a tail section. The tail and wings will be refined a great deal - But I needed something simple to get things started.

I modified some things in the model to make him feel a little more aggressive especially around the beak, which is larger than in the original art. Also I decided against the small metal supports on the sides of the mouth, as I want this guy to look like he could really open wide and BITE!

The wings were today's real head scratcher.

As I had mentioned in a previous post - Since this creature is metal - I cant have any pieces interpenetrating - And with the complexity of the wings , that was one tall order.

I didn't have a drawing of this in any type of bind pose, so I was having a hard time understanding how the wings would move as they were folded and unfolded.

I opted to create the scissor frame at a fairly high level of detail and then rig it. By doing this I can test the wings as they open and close, and by rigging a more detailed piece, I wont have to do it all over again later. (no user friendly controls or anything for now - Just basic parenting)

The scissor action on the wings is really creepy..! But I think I will need some additional support structures for them so that they seem strong enough to support the bird in flight.

I then keyframed the wing unfolding so I can check it through its range of motion while I refine the structure of the wing panels.

Once I had this set up I noticed that I will need to do some extensive re-working of some elements of the design - especially with these wings. Stay tuned.