Saddled Animal Project - New Beginnings

 Saddled Animal Project - New Beginnings

Now that I am back from Christmas with the slice and pumpkin project under my belt, its time to begin the next brief: An anatomic correct animal with either a saddle or saddle bags. I initially read the brief with the intention of making the animal anatomically correct in proportion, but with some different mystical/fantastical style texturing. I had this idea of creating a Kelpie, a water spirit horse from Celtic mythos, and created a mood board of ideas to take to my first session. I knew that this idea was more out there so I did not pin all my hopes on being able to create this animal.

Kelpie Mood board

After speaking to Kat and Pat, this idea was quickly thrown out as it was too fantastical for the brief. This left me in a awkward spot and I had a lot of different ideas that were not sticking with me - I thought about making a normal horse and then making the texture in my own time afterwards but I did not think I would want to approach this project again at the end of the term. I also considered making a fox mount, but because of the restrictions on budget fur cards were going to be limited and I did not think I could do a fox justice. I also considered a bamboo-delivering red panda, but that stayed at the back of my mind too. In the end I settled half heartedly on making a otter with some scuba gear, and set about modelling him using a zphere method, then applying an adaptive skin and doing sculpting passes on top afterwards.

Otter Sculpting Process

Sculpting the otter was a long process and I was struggling a lot with how to characterise or stylise the fur to appear like an otter. In all my references the otters had this pointy fur when wet but when dry they had a soft, short fur all over that made it very hard to model. I found an alpha of hair spikes online that I used on the model, and then used the weave brush with a split line alpha to add more detail to the spikes. The tufts around the face were made using the snake hook brush, smoothing it slightly and then adding texture on top. In hindsight I really should have used the pinch tool to make these tufts go to a point, but this result looked very cuddly and fluffy. I kept running into this recurring problem; If I did not add a texture, the model looked incomplete, and if I added a texture the result looked messy and chaotic. In the end I settled for the final sculpt result, but I still was ready to change it later if I came up with a better solution. 

At this point I started to seriously consider how I was going to apply saddle bags or a saddle to this otter, and I hit a brick wall. I could not figure out a way of making this creature carry either the planned air tanks or giving him a fantasy profession etc - and I had a panic. I had sculpted the otter slowly over the course of two weeks since I had been ill which caused me to deal with dizzy spells, light sensitivity and fatigue, and sitting at my tablet at home to sculpt was quite taxing. I took a step back, and I had some medication now at this point to assist and I was feeling a lot better because of it. I sort of went back to the drawing board, analysing my mood board and collected reference on other animals that might help. I noticed that there was instances of water rescue dogs with these saddle bags and equipment to save people in danger, so I started looking at these references closer. I soon realised that I was quite disenchanted with the idea of this otter; a combo of the frustration of being able to work only in short stints, with the fur texture driving me around the bend, and now I was completely lost on how or what to dress the otter in, I took the decision to look at other animals I wanted to sculpt. 

Inspiration struck when I remembered I had gotten a birthday present that could work for a starting point; I had gotten a Nintendo Switch shell, with a little chibi Shiba Inu with a sushi wrap around it that looked suspiciously like a outfit. It was stupid - but hey I guess inspiration comes from some weird sources sometimes, and I clung to it for life.

Shiba + Otter Ref Board

Switch Case Design

Dogs in general get dressed up all the time, and Shiba's are no exception. I was able to find a plethora of references to use to create a basic idea including a reference of a Shiba with a sleeping roll and little bags on its back, and so I began modelling again - this time a woodland adventurer Shiba Inu. I was even able to quickly sketch an idea that I would use to make the saddle bags, so I knew ahead of time how this would look at a final stage.

Shiba Saddle Bag Breakdown

Shiba Inu Sculpting Process

Final Sculpt

This model came together really fast - within 2 days of work to get all of high poly work done. I will likely make some changes, but I want to attempt retopping what I do have to make sure that the budgets can work for this many props. I am really excited to be able to texture this good boi, and I plan to make a parallax occlusion fur material to get the fluffy texture on the model. I am really happy I switched animal to this, however if I want to I could perhaps return to the otter at a later date to polish and upload as just a sculpt on its own.