Post #170904 by Tiki-bot on Sun, Jul 10, 2005 1:59 PM

I finally did something I've been meaning to do for ages: build a tiki using a 3D modeling program and actually contribute something to "Creating Tiki" other than "awesome painting/carving/mug, dude!". I'm gradually putting together a large, digital tropical/tiki mural image for use in our soon-to-arrive son's room, and I figured the requisite tiki(s) would be a good place to start.

I've made a couple really simple, texture-mapped-only tikis before for the last game I worked on, but nothing this detailed. I thought about which tiki I wanted to reproduce and busted out the Tiki Art Now book. It hit me when I saw Ken Pleasant's awesome KuKu carving, which I saw at the TAN show and absolutely loved.

So, with apologies to Ken, here's my 3D KuKu (with in-progress wireframes for those of us geeks who like those sort of things):

Techie stuff: Created on PC with 3D StudioMax r.5. Basic shape subdivision modeled in polys and editmesh; Meshsmoothed the sub-D mesh, applied procedural wood texture.