Creatures, Grendels & Sculpting

Hi guys! Yeah I know. I've been absent for ages. And I'm sorry to say I'm not going to be coming back to my Creature 1 Norns any time soon. I put my lack of inspiration down to the slow progress on Grandroids (although we do now have a creature that can learn to balance itself, which is awesome) and the lack of information/release of Creatures 4.

That said I'm still keeping up with other peoples blogs, as well as the Creatures 4 website and following Mr Grand's work, as well as spending a fair bit of time thinking about Creatures, even if I'm not playing it.

What, don't believe me? Well I'll prove it to you.

I've recently got my hands on a new program called ZBrush. For those of you who don't know, it's essentially a 3D sculpting package. Unlike Maya, where you take your time to methodologically place points in 3D space to eventually come up with a model, Zbrush gives you tools to create what amounts to 3D clay, and then gives you other tools to mould that clay into whatever you want.

I'm simplifying these processes quite a bit, but that's the basic gist. So, I have an awesome new program to play around with, but I really don't know it well enough to use it in productions yet. So, I need to learn it. And what better way to learn how to use a 3D sculpting package than to sculpt a Grendel?

Yeah baby, that's exactly what I've been doing.

So this is the dude I've been working on, on and off for about 3 weeks. I know virtually nothing of anatomy and there aren't a lot of detailed Grendel pictures online to use as reference, but I'm fairly happy with progress.

I'm kind of a fan of his back warts.



And finally a close up of the facial detail.



Looking at these pictures there's still a bit of work I'd like to do. The back of his hands need some large scales, I want to detail the claws and teeth a little more and I really want to spend a bit of time on his lips. Is there anything else you guys can spot that you think would be worth working on?

As I said, finding reference for this guy was a big ask, so I need to give special thanks to Swampqueen on DeviantArt for her vector art of the C1 Grendel. It was almost the only reference I was able to use. Some thanks also needs to go to Norngirl, as there's a bunch of drawings she's done over the years that were worthwhile reference.

So guys, feedback time! I want to hear your thoughts before I make a couple of final changes and start colouring him. Opinions? Critiques? Complaints that I didn't base it more off the C3 Grendels? All is welcome.

Oh, and feel free to do what you like with the images. As usual these works are a gift to the community. Do with them as you will.