Totem Pole

As promised this post will contain details for my next project. Right now all I have is a sculpt but I'm happy with the progress so far. This time I decided to keep things pretty simple. My main goal is to get an accurate render specifically with physically based textures. Instead of using the age old diffuse, specular, and gloss I want to use the next gen texturing methods. There are actually two main workflows to use for this new generation of graphics. I have decided to go with the metallic workflow. I will go more into this when the time comes but suffice to say that I will be reading a lot this upcoming week.

Anyway below is a few quick renders I got out of ZBrush of a totem pole. I don't have a specific reference because I came up with the design myself. I did take parts of totem poles I found online but the conglomeration of animals you see is what I came up specifically. There was no reason for the ones I chose; I just thought they looked kind of cool. I did a fair amount of research on the Pacific Northwestern Indian tribes that liked to make these and it seems that most of the time they were used to tell a story of some kind. There aren't many original ones left though. It seems that since the air is so moist along the coast (where they were primarily made) that they tend to decay after a while.