The idea is to illustrate something about experiments with animals.

I used Maya for modeling, Mudbox for detailing the mesh and for refining the textures.

Shave and a Haircut for fur and Photoshop for the textures and the final compositing.

No postwork on the final rendering, just a few colors and contrasts adjustments. The background was made in Photoshop.

There are three 4k textures and the shaders are SSS.

The rendering time is about 1 hour and 30 minutes for the highres image 2657x3636, I think it's pretty good considering the fur.

I hope you like!:)

Blu and Yellow Macaw. I tried to catch an unusual angle view following some reference photos I took recently....Sad to see it behind bars...
Modeled with Maya 8.0, rendered with MentalRay. For lighting setup I used an HRDI probe and 2 point lights .No Postwork, only contrast enhancement with Photoshop.
Hope you like:)

Just another shot of the alligator taken from a different angle. More saturation and contrast on the textures.Thanks for viewing

Just playing around with the young tiger changing the camera angle and focusing on his head...
Don't ask me what he is looking at or dreaming of;)...I Just liked his mood.
Modeled with Maya, rendered with MentalRay. Fur with Shave and Haircut.
Hope you like it:)

A screaming Mandrill.
The original image resolution is 3850x2500. I didn't use raytracing/Final Gather but just a pretty default MentalRay preset for fur...I really enjoyed playing with fur! Hope you like it!

Modeling: Maya/Mudbox
Rendering: MentalRay
Fur: Shave and Haircut
Textures and adjustments: Photoshop

Just a portrait of a Neapolitan Mastiff
Maya/MentalRay
Photoshop for gamma and contrast adjustments.
Hope you like it:)

My little green Iguana finally tested with a background.
I've slightly modified the textures and the geometry of the previous model .
Made with Maya 8.0/MentalRay.
DOF and background rendered with MentalRay. No Compositing/Postwork, only the contrast and the color gamma enhanced with Photoshop.
Thanks for viewing

Just a bear illustration.

Modeling: Maya
Rendering: MentalRay
Fur: Shave & Haircut

Hope you like it
C&C are welcome!

The wolf mesh is about 17k polygons and there are four hair systems for a total of 60k hair primitives. I used Maya for modeling, Shave and haircut for the fur and mental ray for rendering. My goal was to have an animatable wolf model with fur keeping an eye to the render time per frame. For an HD 720 rendering it needs about 10 minutes per frame. I rendered the image in one single pass and there is no post work but some contrast enhancement in Photoshop and the compositing of the background image. I had a great time working on this guy! I hope you like it:)

A classic view of a young tiger from Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand.
Modeled with Maya, rendered with MentalRay. Fur with Shave and Haircut.
With Photoshop I added an occlusion layer pass, contrast and color enhancement.
The final image is 3636x2772. I decided to not put the fur all over the body because my PC couldn't really handle so many hair primitives.
Total of six hair systems for the head and the side parts of the front legs just to match the 4k textures of the body.
Hope you like it:)
 

Alligator. Modeled with Maya 8.0 - Rendered with MentalRay -
All textures (2048x2048) made with Photoshop - DOF and background rendered in MentalRay. No postwork on both images.
Hope you like, thanks for viewing:)

I' ve always been fascinated by giraffes. After many angle view tests I went for this one. Hope you like it!
Modeled with Maya 8.0, rendered with MentalRay.The fur is polygonal (no Maya fur) I used HRDI/FG and Dof. The background is a photo taken during a recent trip to Borneo and it's been rendered within Maya. No Postwork, only contrast and color gamma enhancement with Photoshop.
Thanks for viewing

I' ve made this guy just for fun trying to focus on his expression, testing and learning some skin shading, texturing and fur on a human character.
The original head mesh is about 6k polys, here I' ve used a smoothed version (about 26k polys) just to avoid jegged edges.
The skin and clothes shaders are SSS and the hair/fur is made with Shave and A Haircut.
The rendering is made in a single pass and the hires version is 3636x2567 and took about 30 minutes to render it out.
No post work on the character just a simple straightforward rendering.

Thanks,
-Massimo

Just an illustration with the lions.

I used Maya for modeling, MR for rendering and Shave and Haircut for fur.

Textures, compositing and postwork with Photoshop.

The original image resolution is 3800x2375 and it took forever to render it out!;)

For the main pass I used medium quality render settings with FG and DOF.

The shadow raytracing quality wasn't high enough so I had to do some postwork to fill some "black" pixel.

I blurred some hard edges and make some correction to the contrasts and color gamma.

Finally I 've rendered the occlusion pass in separate parts and composited in Photoshop.

I hope you like the final result:)

C&C are welcome

My old Rottweiler model, made with Maya7.0 and rendered with MentalRay. DOF and background rendered with MR. Some postwork in Photoshop for fur, color gamma adjustments and contrast.
Hope you like, Thanks for viewing

Just a Green Frog (male). Modeled with Maya 8.0. Rendered with MentalRay.
Texture/Bump/Specular/Diffuse maps are 2048x2048.
DOF and background rendered with MentalRay. No Compositing/Postwork.
Thanks for viewing
Tutorial on how the image was made here

Just another illustration with my wolf model. I' ve tried to achieve my childhood vision of it.
Maya for modelling, rendered with MentalRay, Shave and A Haicut for fur.
The background is 3D, I' ve used a textured sphere with self illumination for the moon. The trees are polygonal.
Rendered in two passes and composited in photoshop, where I' ve played with contracts and color gamma.
The highres rendering is 2544x3588 pixels.

I hope you like it:)