Bison/Buffalo Beast

For my final year project I worked on the creature for Project Star Bounty. Here I'll show the process from concept sculpt to the finished product since my addition to the group in its Alpha stage.

Although I didn't specialise in rigging or animation, I studied up on the basics, and with the guidance of an actual rigger, Katherine Padley, I managed a simple neck to head skeleton. The head shaking made it look less static, I also added nostril flaring, blinking, and belly breathing as blendshapes.

After Beta, we thought that the rest of the body could use a bit of movement as well, and because skinning cards would be too time-consuming and complicated, I scraped them and painted the fur with some height. I found a good simple quadruped rigging tutorial, and animated the beast. I added a card at the end of the tail to feather out the fur, and added eyelashes. I also had to redo the blendshapes.

Some vanity shots of the beast in the project environment (created by Clarence Munji).

More details on this process can be found in my ArtStation blog posts.

My ArtStation.

The 'Project Star Bounty' Rookies Entry.

Progress and Journey of the Project: Polycount Thread/3DHit Thread