Fox on a Log

This sculpture was meant as a 3D printable (eventually) gift that ended up being quite a lot more detailed than I had imagined. I was asked to make a fox and, after a little searching, found a photo I really liked of a fox looking over a log into the water. I sketched out a handful of foxes and thought about various other compositions along the way but the final design appeared in the sketches done over top of a few early renders of the layout.

I probably found the water ripples to be the most interesting and unusual part of the sculpt because they actually worked (didn't expect that). I used radial symmetry and a few googled references to create a water drop pattern which I layered in several places and from several different contact points on top of a few patterns made from the Zbrush noise plugin.

The fur, as always, was the most difficult part for me. I couldn't really capture the thicker, longer fur of a fox without creating much more spiky contours. I favored this more solid style and tried over and over again until it worked. The tail itself was very hard for me to get looking correct. After sculpting and resculpting the musculature and fur I arrived at an end result that I was happy with.

(Reference photo by Francois Ribeaudeau)