Basic Modelling

I have started to box model a magpie, here is the progress so far.

And here is the reference image I used to model it, it took around 3 hours to get the model looking right.

The current model has been kept really simple so it can be imported into Mudbox. Mudbox will allow me to add a high level of realistic detail I am looking for, of course I need to add wings yet.

There is a script called mFeather that allows for the recreation of accurately moving wings, I will be looking into how to use that over the nest few days as it doesn't look straight forward. The wings and tail will all have to be fully rigged allowing me to animate them realistically. The link to mFeather on creative crash is here:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/modeling/misc/c/mfeather.

I will be either blocking out or producing an animatic for the animation as I am having trouble visualising certain cuts. This process will hopefully refine the story to something that can be used and allow me to begin modelling the various parts of the scenes. I will be using two main scenes; inside the bird house and an external shot of a tree that the robin will be in. The book i have previously mentioned; Ideas for the animated Short recommends keeping the number of scenes to a maximum of 2 or 3 for a short animation.