Demo reel

Fish Turnaround

Fish Process

I started off by re-texturing the fish, just because I was happy with how limited it looked - he needed life. I took him into Mudbox and stuck a really nice scale texture predominantly on his stomach. I'm very happy with look of the fish now.

However sometimes it had its funny problems.

Rigging

This rigging process was achieved by pulling together all the things I already new about rigging - It was like a jigsaw. I saw loads of tutorials online but they were all way to extensive, so I made my own. It is mostly made of very simple joint chains with a Control that controls the rotation values of the joints chain's hierarchy, which make the end joint move at 100% and then parent joints are halved in power. This give me a smooth wave like motion.

Blendshapes 

The eyelid blendshapes for the fish was always going to be difficult, but I think have done a very good job at creating some convincing eyelids.

(Army!!!)

Skinning

The skinning for this character was very easy! and it all works smoothly.

Female process

The Modelling process

 The modeling was completed very quickly, the lack of legs on the model gave me a huge time advantage.

UV

Rigging

Rigging this character was a little easier than the male simply because she has no legs. I didn't want to rig this character with an imply leg underneath, because when skinning the joints it will become problematic. so I did this -

I created a stumped leg, this way I still get the IK leg without the hassle of a foot.

The rig is very simple, but it does the job.

Blendshapes

The blendshapes for this character was more successful than the male, I think this is because I modeled this character a little better and by this point I had some experience working with blendshapes.

Skinning

The skinning was just as difficult as before but the face was very easy which I was very grateful for!

Pose

I picked this pose because it is the one we see her do at the end of the animation, it gives her a nice flirtation characteristic. 

Male Gnome Turnaround

Re_texturing and Re-painting

The project has now become more focused on the design aspect of the characters, so I have gone back to re do some texturing because I wasn't happy with what I had. This time I have taken the model in mudbox to try and achieve a better stone texture.

I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Time to paint. 

I did the painting in Mudbox to just because I find it easier and faster. I wanted to make the painting look like it had been done at a cheap standard which made the paint overlap in areas. This become more difficult than expected because I had to determine how much overlap was working and what wasn't.

The blue on the beard and the white on the shirt is to give the impression that the paint brush couldn't fit under chin. 

Male gnome - where I'm at - modelling, texturing and rigging

The modelling and texturing is finished - he has simple bold colours with a slight fracture texture to make it look like it is made of stone. 

The rigging has been very entertaining so far, I'm learning new things that gives me a huge amount of freedom  when animating him. I'm not finished yet but this is what I have.

I am most proud of the spine rig and the arm rigs - mainly because the spinal rig can twist and twist without buckling. For example the image below shows a 1200 degree twist. 

Im proud of the arms because they allow me to switch between IK and FK animations with the flick of a switch

FK

IK

Modelling the fish

Here is the fish character all modeled and with a basic texture, the model is quite successful. I'm looking forward to rigging this guy and seeing him move - it will be a challenge but also a good learning experience.  

Male Gnome finished

At the beginning of this project, I thought that I was going to love this character, but with any hero type character I have had problems with him. He has always come close but never truly there, I know what he will look like but I have wanted to draw him that way before I modeled him. 

These are my beginning designs for the day.

 The last page was my more successful page.



The expression sheets helped me so much when doing the female gnome so I thought I would just jump to it for the male gnome, and once again, it became a lot more enjoyable.

These expressions are really working for me - I think they show his character nicely.

Once again I finished on the colour experiments but I did not go into too much detail - my favourites are 1,2,7 and 10

Female gnome Designing process

Okay so this is Monday part 2 - the female gnome, I'm very happy with this character, she's really sweet and reminds me of my Nan, which was what I was hoping for. The plan all along with this character was to not spend too much time on her because she is only seen for a few seconds. I have spent around three hours on her today and i'm impressed with the amount of work I have produced for her. 

I really enjoyed doing the expression because they gave me a fun way of anticipating the character's turnarounds - plus it helped in making her seem alive. 

I ended this session with a few colour experimentations - my favourites are 7 and 8 

Expression sheet and Turnaround

Fish update

I have been keeping myself busy by drawing some more images of the fish, I was keeping in mind the characteristics of the fish but trying to stay fresh at the same time. This allowed me to come up with some different styles and proportions - I have been enjoying my time with this fish so far.

I experimented with different scales - larger belly, large fins, larger eye - just so that I can experiment every possibility.

I drew some more images and tried working in some colour experiments

After a lot of experimentation, I came to the conclusion that the character just has to be black or possibly a ver park purple or blue.

I am now really happy with this character, the next job is to do expression sheets and turnarounds and then move on, there is plenty to do, and it is about time i did some designs for the pond. I pretty much know what it will look like because some of the design work was done in the animatic but I would like to focus in on some areas like the water feature and the plant life.