King Kaw

3D Model

I wanted to do a 3D model of one of my favorite designs from an 8 bit game demo I worked on, King Kaw. It’s a giant parrot monster that has adapted its body to life on land, using its feet to grab and arms to walk. The original concept was a parody of King Kong, with bird features applied to an ape’s general morphology.

I sculpted in ZBrush, retopologized with Topogun and baked and textured in Painter. The feather bakes didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, but I did some normal adjustments and curvature masking to get something approaching the refractive effect feathers have. If I were to do this over again I’d go the route of creating cards for the feathers rather than relying on a bake. Of particular note are the beak and the finger/toe scales, those are the areas I feel came out the best in this design.

ZBrush, Substance Painter, Topogun, Marmoset, and Maya