Something I’m working on in the little spare time I have. The base mesh was built in Max and sculpted up in Mudbox.
Cthulhu was described by HP Lovecraft variously as “...an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature.... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque scaly body with rudimentary wings”
I added the Triceratops mantle to add a bit of prehistoric majesty.
Hopefully I’ll get time to finish him/it soon

red

Looking promising. The head is working pretty good, But I'm not sure about the mantle though. It looks a tad "sticked on". If you know what I meen? Might want to look into that. Could be just me though.

SWEEEEEEET

Wow, looks great

looks great! be sure to add bits of rotting seaweed hanging from him.

Thanks for the comments chaps. Much appreciated.
The mantle merges into the skull at it's base and sits over the 'brain mass' as a sort of natural armoured shield. I'll watch that area for sure.

It's a cool start but I feel like it's a bit lumpy and fat in some areas. It looks like you used the elastic brush with gravity turned up for the gut but he has these chiseled pecks and obliques. I will say though, I really like the head.

Originally Posted by praetus

It's a cool start but I feel like it's a bit lumpy and fat in some areas. It looks like you used the elastic brush with gravity turned up for the gut but he has these chiseled pecks and obliques. I will say though, I really like the head.

Thanks for the feedback.
The look is meant to be a kind of old sinewy, wirey body with a distended belly. It's hard to make out on the shots, but the pecs actually hang a bit with the sinews/tendons of the upper arms showing through near the clavs.

Red

This is great I love it, nice work. I really like the tusks and the formation on the head, cool stuff. Those wings are great.

Are you thinking of baking this down to a low poly? You might want to exaggerate some of the surface noise and smaller details, they could get washed out if you're not careful.

Looks awesome keep it up!

i think he looks to small. hes suppose to be a gargantuan space monster right? dont get that feeling. feels more like hes 1,5 meters or something. i would make everything smaller in proportion to the body, especially the wings. they dont look very rudimentary to me

Thanks again for the feedback

Once the sculpt is finished I plan to decimate it and pose it in Max on a base ready to render.

I take the point about the scale. The camera is looking down on him to show the sculpt work. The final render will be a shot looking up at him, to give him that epic scale look.
And yes the description is 'rudimentary wings', but I made the call to give him wings that look like they could actually lift him. Funnily enough I thought rudimentary wings would make him look small and deformed rather than huge and scary.

red

Great work! There needs to be more imagery of our beloved tentically old One.

Although Cthulhu is described as a beast of massive size. I think you add some stuff on him to bring out his size. Like a ship hanging from him somewhere, seagulls flying around his head, etc...
In other words, make him appear gigantic!

looks great!, and yeah like more peeps said, make him look big
Looking forward on updates.

All the tentacles/feelers plus several hundred toothy suckers are complete. Now onto the high frequency detail and painting.

i'a cthulhu

I've been working away on the tertiary detail for this beastie. Lovecraft describes '.....a grotesque scaly body' so I went to town. All adds to the sense of scale. Colours to follow, but what colours?











Red

Wow this looks awesome! Really looking forward to more stuff.

Thanks Japhir.

red

Here's a pic of the work in progress textures. I was trying various colour schemes and wanted to avoid going for something dull. I felt it needed some green in there, but I'd also read that red is very hard to see in deep water so I thought it might be interesting to try this lurid pinky red on his head and tentacles. The spec and gloss are just defined in the material at the moment. I'll be doing specific maps. I wanted to pick the scales out in a similar way to dinosaurs and lizards with the lighter tones in between where the skin is softer and the dark tones for the tougher plates. More to follow...........

Specular maps are all done now so it's onto rigging and posing.
I'll post some more shots when I get a mo. Feedback welcome as always.

I think the tusks could use some color variation. Doing a google search for steer horns and you can see that the color will typically change along the length of a horn or tusk. Right now it feels like a color fill in photoshop with a normal map for definition. Also, I'd like to see something done with the eye color. I'm not sure if it hasn't been done yet or you're just going for a plain yellow but right it just seems very....plain.

Otherwise, this is shaping up pretty nice. Good work!

Originally Posted by praetus

I think the tusks could use some color variation.

they are just toooo dark also, that level of blackness makes them feel un-textured.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Much appreciated.

Eyes, tusks and claws textured. Added more hi freq detail to the skin too.


More shots on my blog: http://redbranchblog.blogspot.co.uk/...-textures.html

all i can say is ...FTAGHN!

good work. but i also think the mantle looks "sticked on"...if you want to look like it's protecting its brain, maybe you should make it smaller and more curvy towards the back, so it covers more of the skull... also , making it a different colour makes it stick out even more.