Saddled animal: Initial Ideas and Zbrush block out

This week's project is the creature project. I am very excited to start this task and have many ideas for them. First, I created and gather pictures of animals I like on a Pinterest board.

I was going to make a flying squirrel but because of its wing that may be a problem during retopping. Foxes are a bit too common for me, so I choose a desert mouse called Jerboa.

Concept moodboard

I created moodboards with pictures of Jerboa and other artists' concept art as a guide on how I will create my saddled animal. There were not a lot of Jerboa pictures from different angles so I choose only the side and the front. The front sadly is not commonly taken, so one of them came in a form of a meme.

Concept Sketch

After getting a rough idea of the creature I sketch out the mouse in my style with saddle designs. I wanted it to have miniature matchsticks at first but ended up with the lantern design. Once satisfied with how it looked, I immediately start blocking out the little guy on Zbrush.

References Use:

https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/the-long-eared-jerboa-stands-and-hops-in-a-class-of-its-own

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rAebgm

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nYzlK

https://grenadierfifer.tumblr.com/post/56439651996/cat-mounts-allods-online-concept-art-finally

Block out on Zbrush

I first start by using Zspheres to bock out rough shape of the creature.

then I Mirror and Weld the mesh and created new polymesh to beable to sculpt on it.

IMM Primitive was used to get the basic blackouts of the features such as the arms, ears and snout.

I could only finish this much for this week, on the next I will sculpt the entire mouse and Im look forward to it.