Modeling, Texturing, and Rigging Update

I didn't have a chance to update my blog the last two months but that was because I had just finished a new  new demo reel in November.  In December I spent the month writing cover letters and tailoring resumes to  dozens of studios in my continued job search.  Looking for work is...hard work and when it was all done I wanted to take a break and do some other stuff like rigging and texture work.  I also wanted to model a new rifle prop for the gun trooper character since the original prop was so big it caused some frustration during animation.  So here's what I did over my holiday break:

This new blaster rifle is an original concept.  I experimented with using beveled edges to smooth out the hard edges some game assets suffer from.  This caused the number of tris to increase slightly, but the number is still within reason.  Maybe during my next break, I can sculpt some hi-res detail in Zbrush.  The gun trooper also got some improved textures, I added specular highlights and a darker hue to the armor, this allowed for his chest sigul to be more visible and added some needed contrast to the overall color.  Still needed though, are some damage and wear effects to the armor.

Next up is the gun wolf animation rig which just needed some mouth joints and shoulder controls.  I also created a new blinn shader to add specularity and began creating new base textures.  This could also use some damage and wear texturing on the armor, but I'll save that for next break.  Now that the new year has begun, I am getting ready to do some animating!