I frequently troll various 3D forums and just about always come away with a feeling of inadequacy.. There are quite a lot of extremely talented folks in the 3D field, and I often dream of being one.

Tonight I have embarked on yet another model making adventure — an attempt to create a very high quality model that actually looks real. In my search for something to create I chose a known object that is from another one of my hobbies, Warhammer 40k. I have decided to make a Tau Hammerhead.

My goal is to make a realistic looking “plastic model”. Meaning, I want to be able to make this model look very close to the plastic model I have on my desk. Not necessarily make it look “real” as in it can really fly and really exists, but rather make it look like its a real plastic model — If that makes sense.

To that end I took some high quality photos of my hammerhead (sans gun) with an attempt to get orthographic references that I could use as backdrops.

And I will be working in 4 hour blocks on this model, as I dont want my head to explode.

Here is what I have after my first 4 hours - doesn’t look like much but its actually extremely accurate and high poly.. heh

Another 4 Hours - looks nearly the same but I have more than doubled the poly count with details that are just not seen from this angle..

+4 - I went ahead and mirrored the for the render just to give me a sense of what it will look like.. I’m very happy. I spent the majority of this 4 hour block cleaning up ugly non-planer polys. Thanks to some helpful advice over at the Luxology Forums regarding ways to deal with non-planer polygons.

I think I have most of them under control, though I still would like a single tool that averages across multple vertices.. I’m tempted to post in the Luxology WIP forum, but some of those guys are REALLY good.. and I don’t want to embarrass myself.. heh Maybe when I get a tad further along.

+4 - Okay I have been fighting with the nose curve for hours now.. It took me forever to get it “right” and I still think its a tad off.. But this is as close as I can get it.. The nose area needs a lot of work, but for a roughed out version this isn’t terrible.

+4 - It actually took me every bit of this 4 hours to get the nose curves to work the way I wanted them to. At this point I call it “better”, but not yet to the point I want it.. It just still looks off to me. Next I work on some of the lower body curve.

+4 - I took a break from working on the main body of the hammer head and invested some time into the main gun.. So far so good…

+4 - I can honestly say that the turret sucked.. It was hard to get done because of its shape. A dome shape sprouting out of another dome, off center - fun fun.

Well a bunch of time has passed.. My main render / model machine died the bad death a while back and it has taken me quite sometime to get back up and running..

I’m still roughing out the model at this point, no serious details yet. In the shot below you can see I have loaded the turret, gun and main mesh all into one model and have begun working on the front drone mounts.

+4ish - I didn’t time it but I figure its roughly 4 hours. This update brings with it a new render style.. I plan to render all future example shots like this using the Ambient Occlusion setting in Modo.

I have added detail to the front of the tank and defined the burst cannon. Only one side though, as I haven’t instanced it yet. A lot more detail to be done here, but a good start.

More as I get time…

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