Concept
Considering our prompt was “Fictional Creature”, I immediately went to my favorite inspiration of human-faced beasts. This time, I was inspired by the Inmyeonjo - specifically, the puppet shown at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. I don’t know much about the actual mythological creature since my Korean is poor and English sources are hard to find, but the puppet captivated me. Its eyes feel like the oddest part, however, and I know I'm not great at modeling/sculpting eyes anyway, so I ended up covering those for my own sake. I also looked towards BW usagi's work for their concepts and art that tends to involve human faces and animal anatomy, which helped cement the direction I wanted to go in - vaguely unsettling, but captivating.
While I was designing, my friends dug up a bunch of images of four-legged chickens somehow. That sold me on the idea of giving it 4 legs, since it was another addition to the pile of weird traits I was slapping on for the fun of it. For the actual build design, though, I looked to artist Zhelong Xu’s sculptures - namely that of a stylized husky - and of plastic Pokemon figurines to figure out stylizing the forms and ensuring it could stand on its own. I wanted to break away from the boring standing poses I did with my previous projects also, but that didn't carry through in the model.
Technique
I used Blender to make this since I’m not trained in most other programs. I’ve used the program since ~2017, so I’m used to making it work for me even if it’s unfriendly for most people. I would not recommend following my path - we were stuck with roughly five days to make our models, so familiarity won out over the workflows and tools of other programs. Otherwise, I would have loved to sculpt in Mudbox or Zbrush, or simply take the time to realize I should box model the entire thing since it would end up low poly/decimated anyway.
In Object Mode, I started making the base form out of various spheres I rotated and scaled into shape. I separated them out into the bangs, the face, the neck, the body, legs (which were mirrored), and the tail. The Grab and Snakehook tools helped to further push the spheres into the proper shapes - the formation of the nose and lips, along with the fluff for example. Once I was satisfied with the base forms, I went into Sculpt Mode and began to actually sculpt with mainly the Draw, Draw Sharp, Crease, and Elastic Deform tools with Dynamic Topology on. When I was finished, I Boolean Union’d everything into one object - its a modifier in Blender rather than a tool or command as in other programs.
For the bare chicken wings, I used a technique outlined in this video. In summary, it involves creating a single vertex made from merging all the vertices in a shape, adding a Skin modifier to create the mesh, and then a Subdivision modifier so it will be rounded. In Edit Mode, you extrude the vertice to create “limbs”. Once I was finished with the base shape, I created an armature from the Skin modifier and applied the Skin and Subdivision, made further edits in Object and Edit mode to my tastes including remeshing since the result clipped into itself, and then parented the mesh to the armature with automatic weights. Then, I posed it into place, Mirrored it, and applied everything again.
For decimating, I used Blender’s built-in quad remesh in Sculpt Mode. A Decimate modifier was then applied to get as low-poly as I could. I simply reduced it until right before when the foot shape completely disappeared.
As a note, the wing-finger details were pointless considering how much the model was reduced in the end. Again, this project would have seriously benefited from me going into it with a low resolution in mind.
Materials
For materials, I imagined it being just the paper/cardboard with some kinda sealant on top due to the puppet influence and the nice white color. So, these “original” renders reflect that thought process. I used the textured white paint material in Keyshot and shrunk the size of the texture to reflect a paper texture. I didn’t realize at this point how much of the paper would burn, though.
With my model ending up selected, but would actually require post-processing, I spoke with my groupmates on what to even do with it. Spray paint was decided on for ease, but I also received an idea to use iridescent paint since the many different faces would create a neat effect with it. The final model couldn't receive it due to poor timing (nowhere nearby keeps iridescent paint in warm colors that I could see, and with the holiday shipping problems and price I gave up). Still, I was attached to this enough that I wanted to render it out in Keyshot.
I used the same material as the paper with a less defined bump map and a Color Gradient on the diffuse that was affected by view angle. A gradient was made matching Rust-Oleum's Color Shift Champagne Pink Spray Paint, since that was the one I was eyeballing most.
Group Project
My concept ended up chosen for our group. Everyone would refer to it as a chicken, so that’s the name of it - “Chicken”. I remember Chicken being chosen mostly for convenience - in the moment, as a free-standing sculpture (four legs is better than two for balance), and because we thought it might be simple.
I put my model through Pepakura, gave the files to my teammate Paige for cutting, and then me, Timothy, and Paige started assembly together. Considering the assembly coincided with Thanksgiving break, however, I handled the last stretch of assembly plus post-processing myself to try and make things easier.
I hated making the thing. It had a lot of pieces because I both gave Paige the wrong files and got greedy about wanting all the original details to show through. I glued a lot of random pieces together so we could stop rummaging through loose sheets of paper, but this ended up making the last stretch of assembly difficult since the large pieces were harder to glue together. Lots of tape was used at the end to keep the entire thing from falling apart - which then, of course, showed up through the spray paint. Alas.
Old styrofoam was placed inside to offset the ginormous tail and help assist in free-standing. Except for some tape wrapped around the pieces, they’re free-floating and held mostly by the shape of the sculpture itself.
For post processing, I used black spray paint and clear Flex Seal. The paper stood up well to both, even with my inexperienced hands accidentally soaking some parts while spraying. Flex Seal dries glossy, and for the sake of this project that turned out great. I hope to get that iridescent paint someday and apply it over the black, but for now Chicken is Chicken.
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