Berk's Forumvine

So I was encouraged by @hictooth I should post these, so here it is.
It's not much, I made these during the past month in my free time.
Constructive criticism is of course welcome.
Hope you like them!

Woah! I wasn't expecting that! I think that these are really cool. I love the lighting you used- it creates a warm setting even though there aren't a ton of items in the background. The grass and trees look amazing, too. Did you create the models?

wonderful!!! erm..by chance one day would you be up for an art trade?..i dont do cgi..i do traditional...but...i love amazing quality cgi pieces

Thanks!

@DragonbackVoyager No, I didn't create the models (Hiccup and Astrid). I got them from IcelandicEel, and where he got those from, I have no idea. I just improved them, gave them new rigs, hair, fur, etc. All done in Blender ( ) , by the way.

@Dracomancer Sorry for this dumb question, but what exactly is art trade?

I found out the facial rigs were completely messed up. The bones were misplaced, thus producing worse facial expressions. I fixed that, and finally even the crazy Hiccspressions looks believable.

There's another thing I discovered. It's called Corrective Smooth. In short, it makes the facial expressions at least 3 times better (and helps capture emotions!) by smoothing out extreme vertex deformations while trying to retain the original volume/shape of the object. It does a really good job.

More than that, I began cartoonifying the characters to allow for much faster rendertimes (35 minutes under Cycles vs. 18 seconds in BI). It's intended for longer animations. Here's how it looks:
More Hiccstrid (Cartoonish)
Another angle

It looks kinda sweet. I'll make a non-cartoonish version as well.

EDIT: Uh, looks like the links above are not working. I'll fix that as soon as possible!

All links are updated. They should be working now!
Sorry about that.

Those are really good
I really like the hook fang one.

Love these! Don't see too much of this stuff around, so it's fresh and exciting- do you have access to a Toothless model? If you do, oh boy... (A fluffy Toothcup picture would be my dream come true. )

Great work Puff!

@Crystallion42 Like this one?
Sorry it doesn't look that good. I was in a rush and I used the not-fixed versions of the models. I'll have more time during weekends to work on fixing them slowly.
I intend to make scenes with Toothless (and other dragons), but I need to re-rig them properly. The current rigs are just bad.

These are so awesome (and cute)! The stargazing one is so adorable.
Great work!