Rocky the Cat

Looking through my work on here I realized I have very little 3D work visible!

Rocky is a character I was working on in the past every so often.  He is inspired from my adoration and love of Garfield the Cat.  Growing up I would say I was obsessed with the cartoon and would not only watch every single cartoon, but have the urge to buy or have someone buy me every Garfield product imaginable that I could find.  I have countless plush dolls, mugs, erasers, toys, figurines.  I have signed artwork from a Paws artist and a signed Garfield cel from Jim Davis.  Garfield greatly affected me growing up in my artistic style, my love for cartoons, my plush design, and I would say my sarcasm.  Now back to the piece. ;)

I modeled, textured, and rigged Rocky in Maya.  I hand painted the textures in Photoshop.  In Maya I wanted to create a soft look for Rocky without having to use fur or paint effects.  I created this velvety texture by duplicating the main body color of Rocky and applying it into the incandescence with a ramp.  This allowed the material to be shown at full color and depending on the angle, a lighter value to create the halo and soft appearance.

The background was also done in Maya and rather fast compared to Rocky.  I wanted to create a scene that is reminiscent from a Garfield special “Out on the Town.”  In the special Garfield meets a group of cats who are members of the Claws gang. I imagined Rocky as the nice member of that group.  He is fully  rigged and has blendshapes for his head.  One day I would like to animate him, I could see him singing something from West Side Story! But for now he is a render.

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