my first model
 

total and complete noob here. my very first model. what do you think?

Kinda cute - and not too shabby for a first outing. (Certainly better than my first efforts)...

thanks mark!! why is it so blocky? i know, a silly noob question, but there is still so much i don't know! thanks in advance!

Give the blocky surface "smoothing".

yep - he is a cutie isn't he - I think he might do with some reworking on the flippers just so he doesn't look like he's balanced all crab-like on them. And as Sod says, just add smoothing to him to unblocky-ise him. This can be accessed when you're assigning surfaces - there's a little tick box at the bottom which says "smoothing" or something like that - turn that on and you're away!

hahaha thanks guys, i knew about that but forgot it!! i thought it'd be easier to animate (when i learn that sort of thing) if i left the flippers straight for now, right or no? here he is smoothed out

question too dumb to post
 

fixed and deleted, thanks anyway!

so will it be easier to animate with the flippers straight or should i put them in a more natural position for now?

Well you've reached the limit of my knowledge - I've always built these superbly complex models that are so complex I never finish them and never get them to the animation stage!

Just on a technical note though - do otters have four flippers? Or is there two at the front and just one tail flipper at the back???

well, it's not really an otter, per se....it's just......a creature......i dunno...it's not supposed to be anything that really exists, or even really close to anything :D i just wanted to make something cute :)

thanks for your honesty, i don't know the first thing about animating, but i'd like to! i'm on my way to learning, but first i want a lil fur on his back, so i'm screwing around with saslite for a bit right now :) i'll post an update when he's sufficiently fuzzy :)

sorry for all the smilies but i'm happy right now heehee

No need to apologise - absolutely nothing wrong with being happy! In fact, it should be encouraged! If you were just trying for something cute, you succeeded - he is quite a cutie - and again, as said before, this looks really good for a noobie effort. Best of luck with saslite - all I've managed to make that do so far is to create furry teapots.

sufficiently fuzzy, i think
 

thanks fallen :D

yeah he is a cutie....i like him....now i guess i gotta name him, creature just doesn't seem to be enough!

well, i threw some fuzz on him, what do ya think?

it's an "Imposible Creature" creature :)

looks cool though good job

I think the fuzziness is working well on him - its given him a nice velvetty quality. Would you mind posting the settings you've used for that? If I ever experiment with sasquatch I tend to overcook the fur making it a lot longer than it needs to be just so I can go "whooo - look at the fur!"

jerry: yes! that's exactly what it is, it's a cute impossible creature!

fallen: thanks! velvetty is exactly what i was going for :D i'll tell you how i did it, which wasn't much different than whatever settings sas started with. i changed the fur color to a little lighter than his back originally was, using the rgb numbers and sliding toward white a bit, changing density to 250%, but every time i reopened the screen it says 100% again, i just change it to 250% and render right away ;)......i changed the length to 20%, i lowered the clumping to 10%. if i messed with anything else, i don't remember, but i know i had to keep removing sas and putting it back on to get anything resembling hair. if i messed with things too much it started to look like jerry curl on me, and i couldn't remember what i changed in order to change it back! LOL basically my method was.....test render, oops, wrong color, test render, eww not dense enough, test render, mmm, not fuzzy enough, test render, oh, too long, test render.......i just had to change one thing at a time to get what i wanted. i really wish i could afford sasquatch! .......someday........ LOL but then again, that would be more settings for me to screw up! hahahaha :D