Unicorn Toy

The toy on my dressing table is going to be a unicorn and this is done using a series of software and techniques.

My ZBrush model after moving it around and getting a nice enough shape to work with:

  

More detail and form added:

  

After I'd finished most of the form I could add on the seams and toy detail on:

 More detail on the plastic aspects to the model and fabric and stitching when needed.

 

 This material shows my models imperfections and detail textures off further. So it helps me check and refine my model.

I finally, without symmetry I sculpted and textured my unicorn's horn.

I drew my topology to re-topologies it later. Following lines of an actual horse.

 

Using images like these.

http://invertednormal.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/horsewireframewordpress00.png

I have Issues with my retopology. It takes at least a day to create the new mesh and i keep having problems with it (holes and part missing) , so i may have to skip this step considering i am not animating my model. But I will try if I feel I have the time to try it a third time (three days is long enough spent).

This helped me with my fur.

Bystedt, Daniel (2012) Tutorial: Create fur with FiberMesh 3D World Available at <http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/08/16/create-fur-with-fibermesh/> Accessed 12th November 2012

Although I know Fibermesh fur cannot be taken into UDK I knew I wanted to try it out. And so here is a turn table and a simple fur coverage that I have loosely groomed and played around with, unfortunately it would take too long for me cover (hence the patches of odd fur) the model using grooming techniques and as i can't use it later it's almost pointless spending the time on it.
But I have it here to show what I have learnt on the way.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingHairUsingAlpha.html

Now I went on to create the hair, using Zsketch and making each strand look like a string of wool.
This is a difficult step when Zbrush keeps crashing and therefore took me 3 times longer so do this simple step.

I then added wool texture for each strand using the clay build up tool.

This is the final tail and mane.

Close up of the mane.

I coloured the mane in pinks and purples.

 And added dark and lighter strands to the wool as it would look in real life.

From here I was able to then go on and colour the rest of my unicorn. I started off with a gold horn and covered the whole of this piece. I then chose a darker colour and ran it along the seams using a cross stitch brush. I then used this same dark colour to create a leathery pattern using a cow styled print.

Using the same technique I used 2 shades of pink on the ears, nostrils and hooves.

I coloured in simple eyes, which will be changed later in Maya to create hopefully a shiny material.

Here you can see the colours and tones I put on my unicorn's body, using a grey and yellow hue concentrated around the seams.

These are the pink hooves I coloured.

Here is a turntable of my high poly unicorn model.

I placed the maps on the low poly, learning about tangent space normals.This turntable is from Maya, and is done without the tangent space setting.