{"id":502,"date":"2011-01-19T23:55:49","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T04:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/the-ottoman.com\/blog\/?p=502"},"modified":"2011-01-20T11:56:32","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:56:32","slug":"the-creation-of-the-scarab-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-ottoman.com\/blog\/modeling\/the-creation-of-the-scarab-part-2","title":{"rendered":"The creation of the Scarab, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Version 1.0<\/h4>\n

The Scarab is only a vehicle, not a character, but in many ways it’s the star of the show. Certainly we’d want it featured prominently on the poster. So getting its “look” just right would be crucial. We knew we’d be spending a lot of time and effort on the modeling phase.<\/p>\n

Things kicked off with a bang when I got an e-mail from Michael Marcondes, a prominent C4D artist who had been following the project. He offered to do the Scarab modeling himself, as the basis of a surface modeling tutorial he was developing. We jumped at the chance, and the resulting model was a marvel:<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Model by Michael Marcondes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seriously, how wicked are those leg mechanisms?<\/p>\n

Back to Basics<\/h4>\n

Once we examined the model from all angles, however, we realized we still had a ways to go. We’d lost a lot of the roundness, the compactness, of the original concept. The Scarab is supposed to have a hunched-over, defensive posture, and we needed the model to reflect that. Here was where our art director stepped in with one of his trademark diagrams. In the image below, he identifies the key lines that define the Scarab’s silhouette. If we could preserve those curves during the remodel, we’d be most of the way there.<\/p>\n

\"Scarab
Artwork by Matt Evans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To put it mildly, it took quite a few step-by-step revisions to get to the final model. I’ll spare you the hundreds of incremental screenshots, but here’s a brief rundown:<\/p>\n