The Shriek

Hi Dan, my name is Ric and the project I will be modelling is focussed on a battle between a creature I created called the shriek and a human character. Here is an early concept of the kind of image I had in mind.





Here is a my final concept for the creature I am modelling. Its changed a bit.



I have modelled a base mesh for the human character. I was originally intending to pose the figure in xsi and then take this it into Zbrush and sculpt the characters anatomy. I am now wondering if I should sculpt the anatomy in pose and retopologise, then pose the character. My main concern with this approach is that the characters anatomy will change in its new pose and will probably need to be sculpted again. Perhaps I should retopologise the character after I have posed it or maybe I could turn the sculpt into a displacement map and put it back onto the original mesh in xsi. Please advise me on the best approach to take!

Here are some pictures of the model and the photoshoot















Another problem I have involves the modelling of the beast. Because it is a biomechanical creature some of the hard edged shapes flow through into the organic shapes like this example below with the characters face. I have made theface lowpoly for the sculpt but the plate attatched to it needs to be higher poly. Should I make the face higher poly also in this case? Also I was thinking of retopolgising the face and attatching it back to the hard edged shape. Not really sure what to do.





The final question I have involves shaders. I have only really encountered the sss shader and struggled to connect it up properly in the render tree. Can you give me any advice or let me know of a useful website that I could look at in reference to applying the shaders for the metallic parts of the creature?

I know you are a busy man, so thanks for looking at these questions. Thanks,Ric