WolfQuest

The new pup for Tower Fall is coming along! Here it is alongside the younger pup from Slough Creek (about 6 weeks old) and an adult wolf. This is based on a 3-1/2 month old pup, which is the pups’ age in the first part of the Tower Fall episode. At this age, the pup’s body looks more like an adult, though with oversized ears and paws and gangly legs. The eyes have just changed from blue to yellow-gold. These pups are still dependent on their parents for food — but they’ll now begin to follow the adults on hunting trips and observe (though usually returning to the homesite before the hunt is over). They’re still vulnerable to predators and, without a den, will conceal themselves in tall grass when adults are away.

As you can see, we’re using wolf coat textures from the adult wolves for these pups. We’ll tweak the younger pup textures as needed so each pup will be recognizable as it grows, though some changes in coat color and pattern are natural and inevitable as pups grow up.

We’ve relied heavily on the International Wolf Center for reference material for these new pups — and they have lots of fascinating videos on their YouTube channel!
Pup Development
Wolf Logs
Videos

Next up is rigging: that’s where we create a digital skeleton, made up of bones and joints, that we then use when creating the animations that will finally bring the pup to life!

That's adorable: the awkward teenager stage for wolves. My dog just went through that...she had to grow into her legs, paws, and ears.

Will Tower Fall only have 3.5 month old pups throughout the whole TF mission arc, or will they age (ie: more than new one pup model) as you go through the missions?

And the IWC is a great resource for anything wolf related. I've enjoyed watching Axel & Grayson (Arctic wolves, I believe) grow up from pups to adults, watching their behaviours along the way through their webcams, wolf logs, and webinars. But my favourite wolf will always be Grizzer...

By five months, pups really just look like small adults, so we'll use a scaled down version of the adult model.

Aww, that little pup has some big ears, paws, and a large snout to grow into. I love how these awkward proportions depict realism rather than a cuteness factor. To me, the older pup is still cute regardless!

That's amazing! I don't know if I'd call the new pup cute, but it is certainly hilariously awkward! I'm excited to see some of its animations once you get it rigged up. Thanks for all your work!

Like most people have mentioned, it looks very awkward haha (in a good way of course).
Good job!

For me I think it's awkward AND cute! So there will there be all adult wolf coat colors on the teen pups, or will they use the pup's colors? Because correct me if I'm wrong, but there are far less coat colors for pups than adults and I'm wondering how that will work.

Whoever modeled the adolescent wolf pup captured the "awkward" phase well.
To me, it looks like the snout is a tad too long.

Snout is accurate -- here it is compared to Luna at IWC at the same age:

The teen stage model really does capture the awkward months really well- I like that.

I think the teen wolf kinda has that look that says "You're looking at me, punk?"