Thanks Civfreak. I made the wings separate from the rest and added later.. I had some problems with face normals facing wrong direction when doing the skin flaps between wingbones however.. that's part of the frustation that kinda killed my motivation.

I'm using Blender too, same version I think. The poly count is shown somewhere on the upper right corner.

I was going for similar crests like you have on your model's head, too.. but Das123 is right, they'd be better as sub-parts, but how to do that, I've no idea. Could you show a smoothed pic of your draconian btw?

Ravenx, I think the scaly skin would have to be done fully with skins, except maybe the biggest scales and crests. Same goes for other parts too.. I don't think making eyes on the model itself is practical. On the topic of skins.. should the models be unwrapped etc? Hopefully I'll try to continue modeling/practising it, but.. Starcraft 2 is taking my time

And ye, I know there are different kinds of draconians, used to read Dragonlance a lot. Wasn't one type of draconian wingless, too? The spellcasting ones I mean. Btw.. are there any new Dragonlance books that are actually worth reading?

Unwrapping is the process of assigning the individual polygons in the model space on the texture map.

I'd be interested in finding someone who was interested in modeling the Vord and Canim units I'd need for a Codex Alera mod. Short of that, I guess I'd be happy to find see a Werewolf or Wolf-man model I could use as an asset for the Canim. Since the Vord tend to take the shapes of their enemies I would probably have an easier time reskinning models and making subtle changes than creating the Canim outright.

If you like working in smooth texture that's great for working, not for a finished model though. When we're talking about "texture" that's what I'm talking about. You don't need to make sub parts of the scales. Just change the "smooth texture" to something a little more rough and it would be perfect

See what I just said above about texture. No need for sub parts . I like the spikey look on the back and taking it down the tail sounds like a cool idea . A little artistic license is a good thing.

It's really coming along very nicely brother, great work man. Do you know how to make a blank so I can start on a skin for it? All I'd need is for you to label what part of the skin goes where, as in orientation like it was a blank piece of paper you were handing me. I'm sorry I can't explain that better. Here let me see if I can show you what I mean. Here is a picture of a standard Dragon Texture from Elemental:

Notice the layout of the pieces (also note the scales are part of the skin and not physically on the model, hmm) . Anyway, if you can give me a blank like that or give me an idea of the layout of the parts, I.E. Head goes here, Wings go here, etc etc, with little labels, I would be able to start on a skin now . No worries though if you can't grasp how to do that at this stage. Like I said I have no idea how the modeling program you're using works and I'm sure we don't have the necessary plugins/converters from Stardock yet anyway, so...

You're doing a Great Job man, keep it up.

  You deserve more Karma.

Here is my crappy version of a minotaur head done in Blender.  I guess we won't know how big a poly count these things can have till after release?  I need to add a body now.  I think my minotaur looks like a cow.  Hey, y'all need a cowataur?

I haven't really done any complex UV wrapping yet, the only time I did one was following a tutorial to add a Pepsi label to a can. Every other time I've attempted to unwrap something I run into some kind of problem, but I guess this will serve as motivation to actually learn how to do it effectively. Good thing Blender has many many tutorials on just about anything the program has, so learning it shouldnt be so hard.

Admiral your minotaur head is coming along nicely, it looks so clean and well thought out! Cowtaur yez! Hehe I think it looks fine and once you add the neck it'll start taking shape and if your not happy you can tweak it here and there as need it

By all means my friend, Spam The Thread . It's more than ok to spam the thread when you're showing work you're doing. I don't think anyone minds that at all, I know I don't. Those pics look killer, man. It's come a long way since you started. Have you found a way to get me a blank texture/skin to work on? No worries if you haven't. I think the proportions are pretty spot on really. It looks cool as hell. Well done my friend, well done indeed. With your permission I'll definitely use it in the DL Mod. Looks like I'll have to make some room on the "Credits Page" for your name .

Question, are you going to fill in the blank areas of the wings?

I'd say do them in thin layers, like a skin membrane on a bat. They could even be paper thin. They don't need to be thick. In fact making them too thick might make the wings look funny. If that's too hard to do though I might be able to skin them in. The french fry part your referring to doesn't look bad at all I don't think. It has that look of there being a bone structure holding the wing membranes in place. You might want to think about making the wings a tad bigger or longer though. Either way it's looking pretty damn sweet!!! Keep it up my friend.

Damn Admiral, you did that Dragon? That looks f'kin Awesome . With your permission I could use that in the DL Mod as well. Granted Elemental already has some nice looking Dragons, but more variations never hurt

Sure thing.  That actually is an Elemental dragon.  It looks better rendered out though Elemental army

I am new to blender so do I just give you a saved file?  Also, do these things need to be animated/boned, because I barely know how to do any of that stuff. 

What programs are most people using to be making their models.

I have an itch to be working on scenery models.

Admiral your Minotaur won't be a Cowtaur (lol) for long, I think you're almost there, the only thing that is missing is proportions. I believe with just some scaling here and there that it'll evolve to a minotaur, like scaling the neck some so its thicker. That alone should go a long way for the next stage in the evolution .

On another note, I just found out what you meant about the wings, they are a bitch -.-. Spent quite a while trying to find a way to add that small thickness, oh and thanks for the tip on adding the thickness, I was gona do a small film and that wouldn't have worked .

I messed around a bit with modifiers and adding a Subsurf dramatically increases the quality of the model, I was amazed.

Subsurf Modifier added:

I think some of the quality is lost in the JPEG. but the difference is incredible. This of course comes at a price, without the subsurf my model has around 2800 faces, but if I apply the subsurf it goes up to 11,500 faces . So I'll leave it off for now and to be honest I don't even know if that would carry over to a game, hell we don't even know if Blender will work with Elemental -.-.

Anyways, what do you think about the wings Raven? Should they be longer? Wider? You mentioned someplace they used them to glide instead of flying so I'm not sure how big they should be Also idk what to do about the eyes, in Elemental they animate the eyes with still pictures I think. In the unit folders there are still pics called "X_Blink" or something, which is basically 3 separate pics of an eye blinking. I have no idea how to apply that to a model .

Edit: @Lupine I'm currently using Blender 2.49, it's a free 3D modeling software. With it you can model, animate, assign materials and textures and a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about yet. Best part is there are many tutorials online that are free and they are usually well done and you will learn fast since its such an easy to use program.

I wouldn't worry about the eye blinking part my friend. I think that's for when characters are seen close up, maybe for in diplomacy and stuff which I don't think we'll need the Draconians for. I'm assuming the game will except the model without the need for an eye blinking animation, which I don't see why it wouldn't. As long as it does I'd say no worries on the eyes blinking.

I like the thickness on the wings, you got that Perfect!! The shape of the membrane is a tad off though. Notice the shape of the wings on Admiral's dragon and the shape of the wings in the skin pic I posted from the Elemental dragon. They are more bat-like. To achieve this on the Draconian model I think the top part of the wings that the membrane attaches to might need to be longer and angled down a bit more. Notice the roundish flap part of the membrane. Instead of being rounded down it should be rounded up, meaning the parts of the wing it's attaching to (I'm just gonna call them Struts for now) need to be longer to get the wing shape right. Just keep the image of a bat's wing in your head you'll see what I mean.

Honestly I feel bad even criting you guys work. It's great stuff and I know it's beyond my skills of making models. Far be it from me to say "hey that doesn't look right" as it's all a matter of taste and opinion anyway. Both you guy's models look freaking Awesome. I really can't wait to skin them . I can already see skinning just the two will be an all day project for me. I really enjoy skinning as well. I don't get that much of a chance to do as many things with my art these days as I'd like so I'm really looking forward to it.

Seriously, great f'king job guys!! You've impressed the shit outa me. You're both getting named as partial creators of the DL Mod when we're done. You're both officially part of the Dragonlance Mod Team, congrats  .