Modeling begins!

Thesis Pre-Production and Character Animation wrapped up a few weeks ago, which means classes are over and Thesis Production begins. Phase 1 is to model, texture, and rig Murphy's character, which includes finishing my ski boots, making alterations to the Morpheus rig geometry, and creating his head. Hopefully everything about his head mesh will go smoothly and I won't have too much troubleshooting to do with parenting the rig to Morpheus.

Modeling progress thus far:

Really happy with the result. I already laid out the UVs on him as well, so Step 2 will be doing some light texturing work using zBrush for displacement maps and Photoshop. The eye rig is complete on this; it has local and world settings, plus some blend shapes. A basic face rig is next, then skin weights and more blend shapes to really give him some expression. :)

Yesterday I played with some procedural textures so his tongue is bumpy. This image uses default Maya lighting, but with proper lighting I'm hoping it will be easier to see the subtle bump map that's on his antlers as well.