My inspiration behind this project came from a viper fish. I wanted to create a creature which looked as mean as a viper fish. Base mesh modeled in 3ds Max, hi-rez sculpt in Zbrush rendered with Mental Ray using displacement maps. Used photoshop to comp and paint in details like spit.

Initial concept sketch of the creature design. Beginning, refinement steps for modeling process.

Wires and Zbrush model sculpted from concept sketch. Please click image to view higher-res

Diffuse texture map size is 6000px x 6000px converted to .map format for rendering with mental ray. Used UVLayout to unwrap UV's.

Texture map @ 100% painted @ 6000px

Gums texture map unwrapped

Texture map @ 100% painted @ 6000px