Textured Dragon

My dragon is now fully textured, as seen below. After creating the uv maps, I took my model into Mudbox where I painted on his texture using paint layers and different types of layers, such as diffuse and incandescence. The paint layers work very similar to Photoshop layers, you are able to blend each layer and change their opacity, giving different effects and having the layers show through one another. I've found the process a lot more enjoyable and easier than if I were to paint it within Photoshop. Being able to paint straight onto a 3D model and see the results instantly has benefited me greatly. I referred back to Sophie's designs for my dragon and based it off the colours that she picked out. I wanted to create the scales on the dragon, however when I tried to, it just didn't look right. Instead I created a sculpt layer where I used Mudbox's default stamps to create a dragon scale texture. When painting and creating sculpt layers, it's best to add more subdivision levels as to increase the resolution of the layers. From this you can then bake out a normal map from the lowest subdivision level to the highest. This will then allow you to take your model back into Maya at a low poly and once the normal map is added on, it includes all the high resolution detail that was on the highest poly model.

As mentioned in a previous post about Mudbox, I had issues with the wings with them including t-shapes. I tried taking them into Mudbox anyway and painting a texture, but it didn't work. I instead had to alter the geometry of the wings slightly and breaking apart the membrane sections from the actual wing bone. I was able to paint them in Mudbox doing it this way, however I had to do the body and wings separately. This didn't prove too much of a problem, but I did have to tweak the texture slightly within Photoshop in order for the wings and body texture to match together somewhat. I'm really happy with how my dragon has turned out so far and as I've said I have actually enjoyed texturing for once. I find that I do work a lot easier within a 3D space so this is something I will have to do more often, I will have to try out this method when texturing my other assets.