Meatball
The Featherless Parrot
Meatball is a featherless parrot who struggles to find a home because no one wants to adopt him. One day, he spots a poster featuring birds with beautiful features and dreams of becoming just like them. Hoping to win people's hearts, he sneaks out of his cage one night and gathers supplies from the pet shop to create his own DIY makeover.
Breakdown
Meatball was sculpted in Zbrush. A high poly version and a low poly version of the bird were created. It was then posed using Transpose Master in Zbrush.
The DIY costume
The poster that inspired Meatball featured a toucan with an striking beak, a flamingo with long legs, a peacock with an elegant crest and long tail, and a parrot with colorful feathers.
His DIY costume combines all the features he admires: a banana chew toy becomes the toucan's beak, a folded poster arranged like a paper fan and attached to a small bucket forms the peacock's crest, feathered cat toys create extended wings, a dog blanket becomes the peacock's extravagant tail, and rawhide dog chews paired with grooming scissors give him the long legs of a flamingo.
Feathers
The feathers are created in Maya using XGen by placing and grooming guides, then applying modifiers to achieve the final feather appearance. Each feather has three parts: the main vane, the aftershaft, and the soft, downy barbs, to create a layered feather structure.
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