Monster Challenge (3D Category) - 'Sleek'

This is my final render for my monster 'Sleek'.

Tail Deformation - 

What I did to fix the tail was in Maya, there is are sculpting tools and one of them is a smooth brush which I ended up using to fix the weird deformation.  

Using Substance Painter - 

I was using XGen in maya to create the hair and fur but, it was a little awkward to work with since I can not see where the textures are and where the hair and fur are suppose to start. So what I ended up doing is going in Substance Painter and creating textures for my monster. 

I only focus on the part that I knew were not going to be covered in hair and fur. 

Textures into Maya - 

Once I was happy with the textures, I exported Base Colour, Metallic, Roughness and Normal Map. 

For the mushrooms, I ended up doing it procedurally using mostly a noise node and making the same noise node into a mask (black and white image) for the specular roughness. 

XGen - 

The issue with using XGen with displacement on top is that you cannot see the displacement in the interface of Maya so, I had to keep my render open while constantly grooming and grabbing the hair so it does not clip over the model in the render. 

Overall, once I got the hang of using XGen, its become easier to handle. 

Lighting - 

I wanted to go for more simple lighting with a rim light, fill light and key light. For the pupils, while looking back at my 2D concept, I wanted to see what it would look like if I added in a point light right around the eye. It ended up looking similar to my 2D concept as well as, making it a focal point. 

I decided to go for the standing pose since I did a crawling pose for my 2D concept sketch. I started blocking out the muscles and other features like ears and tail. 

Since I am unable to work with symmetry, the sculpting process was more time consuming and more challenging since I need to make both sides pretty similar. However, I think not make it symmetrical adds a more crooked and creepiness to it. 

Head - The head was the most time consume due to me adding detail on the teeth as well as adding detail to the antlers.

Torso - Using the actor and human anatomy as reference really helped since I am not really familiar with the human torso anatomy.

Arms and Legs -  I needed to add more mass and clean up a few edges on the mesh since while working in Maya, I just used cylinders and cubes without really thinking of how it would work in ZBrush. I ended up spending extra time on polishing and cleaning the limbs. 

Tail - the tail ended up being really crooked. When I try sculpting or polishing, it gets worst. I will most likely fix it within Maya since I have a better workflow within Maya than ZBrush.

Once I was happy with the sculpt, I duplicated the sculpt and lowered the poly of the mesh to be more compatible in Maya and also projecting the original sculpt with the detail onto the low poly model. I then made a Displacement Map so when I rendering in Maya using Arnold, the displacement map should show my sculpt details. 

The plan now is to add hair and fur on the sculpt and, if I have time, texture it. But my priority at the moment is adding hair and fur. 

I start by trying to copy my 2D concept art and translate it to a 3D environment. I mostly used spheres and cylinders to make the torso, head and limbs but for the fingers, I used cubes. 

I also did a stand up pose as well since I did not want to try out different poses and also not make a replica of my 2D concept just in 3D. I thought it would be a good idea for the long arms to drag on the floor when walking bipedal.