Onto the wings: Now wings are a deceptively difficult part to work on; whether it's a bird, bat or dragon. While it's easy enough to model them one way, it's also very easy to make them wrong.

Most other organic shapes are either limbed, or rubbery. These wings however, have a membraneous area that stretches in between -not just in a linear fashion either, but in a double fan.

First things first; the sketch. The wings need to be thought through properly, so just making them up as I go isn't good enough.

The sketch is then imported into the background of Max and used to trace the contours. Because it's a fan array I chose to use a very primitive plane and follow the edges along the "fingers" of the wings.

Note that I've used SmoothRef modelling again; the wings will need to be meshsmoothed at render time and the results MUST be predictable.. so it's essential to work with a smooth modelling process.

The final shape is now starting to become apparent. I've still got slightly rounded ends to the "finger" ribs where I want them to trail into spikes. Here i just select the apporpriate polygons and bevel them out to the right extents- giving that nice sharp definition.

The only thing remaining on the wing is the "knuckle" area, but it's late and I've got an early start in the morning. The knuckles will have to wait for another day.

mouse-over: modelling the wingtips