Modelling; Lion Cub

I have now altered my Lioness model to form my lion cub.

Little alterations were made, to make the lion cub cute and chunky, similar to the fox cub. These are common features of cartoon characters and babies, "cute and chunky".

I moved vertices, shortened the legs, scaled the muzzle in the y axis, and made the tip of the tail more like the bud of a flower and gave it more of a flick. I chose to leave the "bottom" quite large, and dip the back a tad. I also made the neck a lot thinner.

Here is the final lion cub. Again I have chosen to wait before scaling the model down until I organise all the models into one scene.

Modelling; Lion

Once again, I have modified the fox I have created rather than start from a box. Even though I have created these low poly models in a very small fraction of the time it took me last semester, it was still easier and faster to work with the fox model than create something this similar from scratch.


I manipulated the model by moving vertices (e.g. arching the neck as shown above), scaling portions (for example thickening the legs) and generally playing to get the right shape.

Once again I did the 'side-view' first, then played with the 'front' view of the object to adjust the nose and width of the lion.

Here is the final low-poly version of my lion.

Character Profiles

Here are the guides I created for my profiles;


Below are some profiles of my two main characters; the lion and the fox mothers.

I have done a side and front view so I can easily create my models in 3DS max. Now on with the modelling!

(Granted they aren't quite accurate, as you can see the guidelines are a tad wonky, but I intend to play with these rough designs in MAX anyway...)

Thoughts On My Animation

I have been thinking about my animation on and off for the last week, and have decided on my fable. I have chosen the Vixen and the Lioness; "Quality is better than Quantity". This is a very meaningful message, and I think I can portray it well.

I think I will try to keep to the fable as it reads as best I can, although not with speaking animals. I may just have subtitles, or I could not use words at all and try to make the eyes do the talking with close up shots. For example the Vixen with a wide smile on her face, whilst the Lion looks almost not acknowledging her expression. It would be easier to not have to worry about speech, but I think this could give the animation a lot more impact. If the characters look cartoon like then I could get away with voices, but if they look more realistic, a voice may make it less effective.

It did also cross my mind to maybe change the animals (I enquired as to whether we could, and as long as the message is conveyed well it is acceptable to do so), although I don't think I could portray the message of quality better than with the majestic Lion, king of the jungle. I may change the vixen though, if I could find a suitable replacement.