[helell]

oh yeh... forgot to say I put more teeth and spikes in, to bring it closer to my sketch, but am still not quite happy

[D-Train]

hello helell, I just want to say that your art work that you're chiseling out is great and you are one of my favorite, keep working hard at your project your doing a good job.

[helell]

D-train, it is very nice of you to say so. I am trying to show as much of the progress as possible, in the spirit of the contest, as some my find my struggles interesting. Progress is slow but the various bits are starting to come together. After reading some posts today it seems like everyone is feeling the pressure of compleation

[helell]

I spent today chasing triangles, and trying to rough out a body for the dragon, with no joy so heres a shaded view of the head

[AvenGeR]

Hey Helell

nice dragon head, looks really detailed.. ur armoured guy looks cool i like it alot..

keep up the good work..

[helell]

I shall try No updates today I'm finding it hard to find the time presently.
I tried with the modelling of the head to get the same kind of feel as my sketch, but as is the way no sooner than the spikes went on the model looked worse for wear. With a bit of luck the texturing will help. I guess you'll just have to watch this space

[helell]

Here's my current progress with the Dragon. The modelling of the dragon body is freeflowing as I have no idea what I'm doing, just making decisions as I go along, which works because its a fantasy creature. This I find is allot different from the modelling of the horse, which I am trying to build anatomically correctly. So the modelling goes slowly with it.

[helell]

I thought about changing my concept ... a kind of Pete's Dragon ... invisible ... nice and simple to construct Though fortunately I persevered, here's what it looks like now after a bit of pushing around, it was allot different an hour ago!
Now time for bed!

[dori3d]

Hi helell. U are going very well. Congrats !...

[bichosi]

woow incredible dragon model i like it, too nice.

[jpaller]

interesting approach to integrating the wings into the musculature, but have you looked at any birds for anatomical refrence. anatomy tends to be very efficient and i find it hard to believe that it would look like that. it looks like you took the erector spinae, latissimis dorsi and part of the trapezeus and combined them into one muscle. there would be very little purpose to such a large muscle there. and the latissimus dorsi (lats) bont have any attachment near the top of the humerous which is the normal site because of their function. a muscle like that would also be needed for the wings but i doubt it would be oriented in that way. remember, muscles only pull and the angles of insertion need to allow that.

it does look really cool though, and really nice topology.

-josh

[helell]

Dori3d - I don't feel like its going to well as I have lots of things to catch up with this week, (huh - life who would have one ) but thank you for saying so. I'm going to go over and have a peek at your thread as your current cool thread icon looks very appealing to me.

Bichosi - Once again thank you for you kind words, I wasn't to sure of the direction of the dragon, and was as the say "playing it by ear". I was thinking of a short tail but like the idea of a flowing long one... decisions, decisions. What do you think?

[helell]

Thanks Josh,

Critisism is good but I don't understand how you could observe the erector spinae/latissimus dorsi/trapezius muscle combination, as the image I posted does not present the back of the creature. Are you entering? I would love to see what you come up with.

Whenever the subject of a dragons anatomy is raised it always leads to a question of practicality. Putting the ridiculous size/weight/mass issue to oneside, the easiest solution is always to reduce the number of limbs from 6 to 4. Four-limbed creatures exist in nature and are easily adapted to a dragonesque shape, but this is classified as a wyvern and not a true dragon. Anyway, the question of a creature having two clavicle/scapula type arrangement creates a very impractical and improbable situation.

My dragon is a fantasy creature. It has a suggestion of two shoulder girdle arrangements on each side; one for the wing with a oversized deltoideus, etc. and a second rotated set for the arms which still have to appear to be practical giving the creature the ability to walk on all-fours and support the weight of the chest.

Hurray for artistic licence and the infeasibility of dragons!


Helena N? Cheallaigh

[kelly_romeo]

Helena - I am by no means an expert in Dragon anatomy. Like you say, "Hurray for the infeasibility of dragons!" I think you've got it pretty much right on and it's looking fantastic. Your dragon has a real sense of weight about it. It just "looks" big and heavy to me. And thank you for recognizing that a 4 limbed dragon is closer in relation to a wyvern. Not everyone knows that.

[jpaller]

well you can clearly see the insertion of the lats and traps in the image. my assumtion about the tree muscles as a whole was based on the size and orientation of the lats themselve, considering that the traps look rather human right near the neck. basically my major criticism, and i may have gotten off track was about the lats and the fact that it didnt seem to be connectiong to anything in a valuable way. obviously you are allowed liberties when working with a fantasy creater especially on thay doesnt seem constrained by physics (hell, ur allowed any liberties u want, its ur work and i aint ur client and i sure as hell aint giving u no money), but i would think that the setup should imply that the limbs are able to move in the way they want to. how do you swim butterfly without ur lats? much of your downward arm movement comes from there, but what happens when you swoop down to pick something up and want to pull it in toward ya?

with something like this there are really just 2 ways to go and one is trying to adapt current muscle systems and the other is trying to build to and add on top of existing physiology perhaps by investigating aspects of the model that appear in nature. i cant say which one is right or not, but the lats just really grab me as a useless peice of meet on that character. i might be misreading them and it could be a muscle you added while leaving the lats as they would normally be. i dont know.

however, i will say this. i see a lot of shit get posted by people and i see alot of people ignoring the many obvious deficiencies. i ve seen people defend awful anatomy by saying its stylized. but this is one of the nicest models i have seen in a while, possibly the most impressive i've seen in the contest. If there was even the possibility that a judge were a stickler for anatomy the way some of my instructors trained me to be i would hate for them to discount you because of something you hadnt realized. but hey, now u know. doesnt mean u need to do anything or that theres anything to do even. keep up the great work. have really enjoyed seeing urs come together even though u started working on it later than some (or at least started posting). i've been looking in at stuff everyday, i only wish i had time to do one of my own.

again, just so we're clear i only commented on it because it seems like u have urself together enough to have a discussion about it. in most cases i look at an image, laugh, and move on. the poster's time is better spent working that reading my most profound comment (assuming i ever made one)

-Josh

[helell]

Kelly - Hey you and me share a common name, in Irish it means contention, one who loves to fight

I was at a loss as to what kind of dragon I was going to build, you can tell so from my rough sketch, as it looks like an oversized turtle. LOL. I am just glad that I have gotten it thus far.

Josh - you get the prise for the longest post :P It is much appreciated that you have spoke your mind on this and am doubly glad that you like it so much. All criticism and comments are welcome to this thread, it is one of the reasons for posting work in progress, and currently the dragon is very much so.

I have taken an anatomical approach with the horse, and have found that it's modelling is taking for ages, cutting muscles shapes into the mesh and keeping a quadrangular topology has become my nightmare, with lots of constant changes slowing me down. I only just finished laying out the front leg last night! Ill post progress on that later.

Currently I am more worried about completing the dragon then whether it has ample latissimus dorsi. I am surprised that people are still entering, my progress thus far is slow compared to many, I believe it was 32 days ago that I started the modelling and have been trying to post progress daily. At this point I am very much looking forward to seeing what all the finished images look like, most of all my own

Anyway enough of this banter I have a wing to finish!


Helena

[kelly_romeo]

Oh goodness, I know exactly what you mean about finishing. I'm secretly calculating the chances of getting it all pulled together in time. Every weekend from now till then is booked with prior obligations and for some reason this month has been ridiculously hectic. So, here's to getting back in the fight and pulling something together! Yeah! ::sigh::

(I don't know what my mother was thinking when she named me. I'm the most non-contentious person I know. First name Irish; last name Italian...I'm so confused; typical American.)

By the way, I found a few dragon references you may find useful. Seeing as how this is a Dungeons & Dragons related competition, it?s only appropriate that these references be from the official D&D website, ?eh? Perhaps something in here will help with the mystery of dragon anatomy: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20031108a
If not, well, they make for a nice diversion then don?t they? Enjoy.

Now get back to work you! And good luck,
-Kelly Romeo

[monsitj]

Hi Helena! many thanks for pop in my thread and leave some message , I never thought that great artist like you will visited my little lonely thread very nice work you've done ! awesome!

[helell]

Kelly - thank you for the reference link it is much appreciated, it was a good distraction. It has some really great sketches with a great variety of dragons. I once worked on a ill faited dragon show for four years of my life, and I still can't decide what I think a dragon should look like. I think the experience confused me greatly, as they were all good dragons, and I don't do cute! at least not unless I'm forced to! You are right, time is short but I started so I'll finish.

Monsitj - Your not all alone, I'm sure plenty have an eye on your thread guessing what you will produce.

Cheers

[m_mecman]

:P :P What can i say?? You rock! ahahhaa
amazing....a perfect thread....no doubt....congrats!!