Finishing the mongoose and the mongoose's blend shapes!

I recently finished my mongoose model. Fully textured and rigged with some BlendShapes. What I didn't explain last time was how I did the eyelids and the eyes. The eyelids were created from two NURB spheres and have driven keys set to them so that they can be opened and closed. These were then parented to the controls I created using the CV curve tool so I could change them using these controls. They also have limits set on them so that I can't accidentally rotate or scale the eyelid or open the eyelid too wide. The eyeballs are also parented to controls so that they can be moved with one control, making my life easier.

The mongoose texture was some simple colouring in Adobe Photoshop with a filter added just like the snake. However, to get the furry looking texture of the mongoose I found a free fur texture online on this website: (http://seamlesstextures.org/2010/05/fur/).

The BlendShapes were made by duplicating the basic model of the mongoose, and then edited to have different facial expressions. These models would then be made BlendShapes of the main mongoose model and by clicking the BlendShapes in the Channel Box I can change the mongoose's expression to that of the BlendShape of my choosing. This means it will be a lot easier for me to give the mongoose different expressions once I had rigged the main model. The BlendShape models are also on a different layer so that they can be hidden whilst rendering.

Reflecting on how the model turned out, in my opinion, I would have liked the mongoose's textures to have turned out as good as the snake's textures did. The eyelids turned out a lot better than I imagined as I had no idea how I would do the eyelids when I had started on the model. The BlendShapes I feel are okay, but I need to make more facial expressions and make them more expressive to give my mongoose more character.