I started this model alittle while back but I finally have time to pick it up again so I thought I would start posting my progress. Based on the awesome concept by Ted Beargeon

Head that I started awhile back:


Progress on the body

good start, they're such a fun thing to sculpt

I am sure it is a good character work.Hope to see more your works,cheers!

nice start man; lookin forward to the rest!

Thanks guys!

Some work on the tail. Whew it was tedious making all the scales and positioning all the spikes.

Looks great so far!

Beautiful work! Love what you've got going on with the head.

Thanks for the comments. I feel almost silly now posting this after Jeremy Klein's awesome art dump

Here is small update. I made some legs and did a detail pass over the body. The first leg is just duplicated and rotated for the other ones. I am going to make them alittle different from each other in the end.

Damn, it looks good. Only one nitpick - the head seems little less interesting texture-wise comparing to the back plates. It lacks middle scale detail.


And NEVER be discouraged by ones awesome work, only inspired!

Yeah, like uncle said, don't be discouraged. We're all here to learn. It's looking good and i'll agree about the head. The concept has alot of nice little detail that you could push more in the sculpt. Also, in the concept the front legs look larger than the other 2 sets of legs, almost double the size of the rear set. Play with their sizes a little more because they're looking a little too even in your model. It's supposed to be a critter attacking you from the front, emphasize that. Hope you dont mind, i did a little comparison

How are you going about creating the back plating for this? Is it entirely sculpted? Seems like it would be pretty difficult to do something overlapping like that.

looking ace, I have nothing to add beyond whats been mentioned crit wise....sorry, just wanted to say I like it

@darbeeno I guess those are just separate objects. Sculpting it as a whole is not worth the effort I think.

uncle: Thanks man. Good call on the head. I started with the head and its one of those situations where my process changed a little as I went so I need to go back and make it look like the rest.

wretchedgoat: Thanks for the good feedback. Very good observation. The image helped. I am going to work on that now.

darbeenbo: Whew.... the scales were kinda tedious. As you can see the scales sorta fuse into the body so I couldn't keep them separate meshes. I did a few tests and I found a pretty good way. I made the underlying body with Dynamesh first. Then I sculpted one scale about 3/4ths of the way done and duplicated/positioned each of them. I changed their shape close to the concept as I went. When I was sure I couldn't do anymore I merged the scales one-by-one with into the Dynamesh body. I went back and added unique detail to each of them (the tedious part). I had to set the Dynamesh rez pretty high to get a nice edge and make sure they didn't weld to other scales. I think my 1st subD level is like 1.5 mill 0___0

seth.: Thanks man! No need to apologize. Everyone likes to hear that. I love your new work on the Quake remake BTW

Ok. I have been sorta distracted working on some Zbrush scripts but I think i addressed some of the comments here and did a detail pass over everything. I think I am about done with the sculpt?!






And because the arms sorta get in the way a screen shot without the arms...

I want to print that sucker and paint it :o

Yuuuussss...

Proceed with this bugger, I want more

yes, much better!

hot damn this art is wicked siiiick!

Really amazing sculpting man. that dynamesh method for doing those scales is the hot tip

Thanks everyone! You guys are keeping me pushing forward.

Here is some progress on the Polypaint. Some color really makes a difference.

Oh god this is gorgeous. I really like that you've given the ripper legs. I've been in and out of the hobby for 7 years or so, Tyranids always being my main army. I was going to do the six leg thing for the rippers, but the real life models are so freaking tiny it would have taken forever.

Nice job on everything. Sorry to be 'that guy', but the only thing I would change is the plating on the head. I'd rather see five plates on the head (standard plate amount for almost all tyranids). And just an aesthetic thing, but it would look better in my opinion if the legs were different sizes

nyx, that is looking like some spot on polypainting! Enjoying watching this develop


selaznog, that's interesting. What else are common characteristics like the 5 plates?

Hm, I haven't touched the models in awhile. I used to draw tyranids all the time though so I picked up a lot of things that were similar in all the species.
-5 head plates
-three oxygen holes (not sure if that's what they are, but there are 3 indents on each side) near the base of the tail
-5 basic body segments; head, ribcage, thorax (waist), hips, tail. The hips and ribcage are large while the thorax (where the abs would be) is generally smaller. Hips attach to tail.
-3 sets of limbs; arms, second set of arms, legs. All the arms are attached to the ribcage and the legs are attached to the hips.

There's a lot more, I just forget

Still awesome? :checking:
Yep.