Hello all. My project time is spread very thin at present, with a lot of my GotG stuff making slow progress, but right now I've made a little bit of a start on my life-size statue of Rocket. The intent is to have a statue/puppet of Rocket that is poseable so that I can display him alone or have him on my shoulder when I eventually get around to making a Groot suit. As with all my Guardians efforts, I aim to do as much of the work as possible by myself. Here's where I'm at right now.
I decided right off that this would be a hybrid project that uses both old-school hand techniques and 3d printing. I wanted the statue to be as lightweight as possible so that I can have it on my shoulder for extended periods, which is why I decided to digitally sculpt and print parts of Rocket's "skeleton". I also wanted to quickly be able to change his expression, because I concluded that the single largest challenge in this project will be to capture the unique personality of Rocket as he is on screen. I was worried that he might end up looking like an angry wolf-dog instead of the wry, sarcastic little fellow that he is.
Gauging where his "skin" would be without the fur was the first challenge.
I've very rarely worked with fur or hair and I want the end result to look real. I decided against using real fur for ethical reasons so I needed to find a way to make his faux fur look like it does on-screen. I did some quick testing with various glues and paints on a throwaway prototype skull to nail down some techniques.
I then further refined my head model, making sure to give it a lot of asymmetry. Features have to be exaggerated a lot to accommodate for the smoothing that the fur will do. I made his lower jaw separate so that it would be easier to work with and so that I could modify his expression a bit if needed.
I haven't done much "organic" modeling, so I thought I'd try my hand at sculpting his nose in the computer. Turned out rather nice. The skull is 3d printed in 200 microns (very low resolution); I didn't need higher since it'll all be covered anyway and a rough surface helps the glue grip. Even so, the skull is a around a 20-hour print and uses a lot of plastic! The nose is actually a 20 micron (0.02mm!) print. Pores would be added to the nose later.
Skull covered in masking tape for fur-patterning. Teeth and tongue (not pictured) were also printed but his lips and eye sockets are sculpted in clay. (The eyes are bought ready-made.) So much of his personality is in his eyes and I wasn't really sure that this would look right in the end.
Painted up the inside of his mouth and gave him his second eye. Trying out a few different mouth positions. I still don't know if this will look right once the fur goes on, but I think that I can see at least a little bit or Rocket in these last two shots. (Once the bushy eyebrows go on they'll give him his trademark scowl.)
More to come as I go along...
I decided right off that this would be a hybrid project that uses both old-school hand techniques and 3d printing. I wanted the statue to be as lightweight as possible so that I can have it on my shoulder for extended periods, which is why I decided to digitally sculpt and print parts of Rocket's "skeleton". I also wanted to quickly be able to change his expression, because I concluded that the single largest challenge in this project will be to capture the unique personality of Rocket as he is on screen. I was worried that he might end up looking like an angry wolf-dog instead of the wry, sarcastic little fellow that he is.
Gauging where his "skin" would be without the fur was the first challenge.
I've very rarely worked with fur or hair and I want the end result to look real. I decided against using real fur for ethical reasons so I needed to find a way to make his faux fur look like it does on-screen. I did some quick testing with various glues and paints on a throwaway prototype skull to nail down some techniques.
I then further refined my head model, making sure to give it a lot of asymmetry. Features have to be exaggerated a lot to accommodate for the smoothing that the fur will do. I made his lower jaw separate so that it would be easier to work with and so that I could modify his expression a bit if needed.
I haven't done much "organic" modeling, so I thought I'd try my hand at sculpting his nose in the computer. Turned out rather nice. The skull is 3d printed in 200 microns (very low resolution); I didn't need higher since it'll all be covered anyway and a rough surface helps the glue grip. Even so, the skull is a around a 20-hour print and uses a lot of plastic! The nose is actually a 20 micron (0.02mm!) print. Pores would be added to the nose later.
Skull covered in masking tape for fur-patterning. Teeth and tongue (not pictured) were also printed but his lips and eye sockets are sculpted in clay. (The eyes are bought ready-made.) So much of his personality is in his eyes and I wasn't really sure that this would look right in the end.
Painted up the inside of his mouth and gave him his second eye. Trying out a few different mouth positions. I still don't know if this will look right once the fur goes on, but I think that I can see at least a little bit or Rocket in these last two shots. (Once the bushy eyebrows go on they'll give him his trademark scowl.)
More to come as I go along...
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