Week 16: Testing, Tooning, Trying not to Confuse Myself...

SO This week I want to start texturing my model for my final animation

I'm still a little bit undecided on how I want to go about this to give her a more 2D look, but after looking a a few other styles again i'm leaning towards bump mapping and just giving her the more realistic 3D look... woe is me etc

I've been trying out toon /cel shading to see how I feel about it and i'm quite happy with the results.

I'm looking at a few more examples and videos to see if I can be a bit more inspired.. i'll also be testing out some UV mapping and painting in Photoshop in a Fiona Staples style. Hopefully will have a decision and fully textured model by the end of the week!

Song to Texture to / Add to the playlist:
We Major - Kanye West ft. Nas & Really Doe

Tutorials: Toon Shading - Peter Evemy Cel Shading in Maya Talking Toons - Zero Limit Channel  Creating A Toon Shade in Maya - Shikijiyu Skin Texturing and Shading in Maya - JKLind

Maya, Modelling and Me

Huzzah! Think i've pretty much finished modelling her now :) It was definitely a much quicker process, but I also wanted to be a bit more careful with my 

topology because I will be animating her.

Also added in teeth and a tongue for when I eventually animate her face!

In terms of texturing I definitely want to go for a more 2D look so may do this with toon shading, but also want to test out different methods like lining over the UV maps.

Week 15: Re-Modelling Progress

I've spent the last couple of days remodelling my character for my final project.

Definitely working a lot quicker and with more confidence in Maya! - Still have Digital Tutors in the background just in case!

But i'm finding that because she's more stylised this time I have have a bit more fun with her and make certain elements like the waist and hips more extreme without having to worry if she is anatomically correct! It's also making my mesh a lot more simple. I'm trying to make sure i'm not just throwing around edges and cuts like with my last model. And i'm looking out for triangles and 5 sided shapes!

She's also less square and a lot more rounded this time, now that I know what i'm doing.

Aiming to be done in a day or so.

UPDATE 1:

Body base pretty much done. Working on the head and a portrait of Kendrick Lamar to keep my  portrait skills up! (And to keep me de-stressed)

UPDATE 2:

Finally finished up the head pretty much! It's such a MASSIVE difference and improvement from my first attempt, and I had a lot of fun doing it and tryingg out a different technique from before.

This time I used the cube method thanks to Digital Tutors, instead of the plane method that i'd done previously.

Pre production, Projects, Progress

I've been working on the character design for Amit's final project this week too.

I'm currently working on the final designs in Photoshop and will send to him and the group for feedback. Will update on this when they're done.

UPDATE:

Finished working on Forest Guardian designs

I've also been thinking a lot about Dee-CON - a few of us want to pull together a comic to put into an anthology, which would be amazing!

It would be great practice for me, and really beneficial if I used it as a chance to explore my research a bit more. I'm currently thinking coming up with a music video style comic based a bit on Nas's version of Thugz Mansion - i'd write the song myself though.

Lots to think aboutttt

Songs to Add to the playlist: 

Happy - N.E.R.D 

Thugz Mansion - 2Pac / Nas

New Designs, Not so neat lines, Next steps

Huzzah, I've reworked my character Monae to give her a more stylised look! I've widened her hips heaps, and made her limps longer and thinner. Really happy with the result.

I worked on it with the old design in the background so I could gauge a much better idea of what changes I was making and how this would affect the overall character.

This will done with a whole lot of Kanye West and Billie Holiday.

Will update once I have the colours down UPDATE:
She is COLOURED... I have 2 versions - V1 is the more Billie Holiday/Janelle Monae influenced and V2 is more Nirvana/Akira influenced... i'm currently leaning more towards V2 but i'll make a decision soon.

I also need to source and create the logos/badges/stickers for her shoulder pads - theses are gonna be influenced by the things I like but also how I see my character's personality to be... I also want it to make sense to my programme of study and the story.
UPDATE 2:
Rough logos added. I really want to think about how i'll go about adding these when it comes to texturing - mainly because of copyright and because I want it to actually look good. I may generate my own hand drawn versions so it fits with the 2D feel texture that i'm going for.

UPDATE 3:
Finished up my t-shape so I can start modelling next week!

Week 14: Art, Argh, Ahhhh

Had a bit of an idea slump over the last couple of days, and trying to get my thought onto paper for my character redesign has been a bit trickier than I'd hoped.

I think this is mainly because i'm attempting to break out from my usual style, so making different features more extravagant or diminished goes completely against the anatomy study side of me, but I think i'm getting there.

I've almost nailed the design, but there are still a few more tweaks to be made - to the head in particular - and I need to develop some consistency with this style.

It's been interesting comparing it to the first final design from last semester, and this time I really want her suit to tell her story - mainly through the textures and stickers/badges on her shoulder guards.

Ahhh I think she needs to be more gangly and her head a bit smaller!

Song To Art To: Janelle Monae - Violet Stars Hppy Hunting!

Music, More Designs, Many Ideas

I've been pulling together images and references to help me with redesigning my character. I want to work on making of costume/suit a lot more stylised and intricate, and at the moment I've been listening to lot of Nirvana, Turin Brakes and Janelle Monae so i've got a grunge, soft rock, cyber hybrid thing in mind.

I'm going to be working on the redesign for the next week and watching things like Akira and FLCL to help me flesh out my ideas. 

I've also been looking a lot more about the style and character development of Gorillaz, and the increased cross over between 2D and 3D.  I think I want my character to maintain a lot of its 2D elements while in 3D, so will need to keep developing my texturing skills!

Aiming to have a new design, model, rigged and bound character by the time i'm back at uni after Christmas.

Songs to Add to the playlist:
Every Planet We Reach is Dead - Gorillaz
Feeling Oblivion - Turin Brakes

UPDATE:

Been working on a couple of quick sketches for the re design - will revisit this over the next few days and make a few more changes

Warm Ups, Wacoms and Works in Progress

So i'm still working on ways to quickly apply colour and values to my figures and character designs. I'm even considering implementing this into my texturing processes for modelling (in a vain attempt to create a unique style!)

I've been looking closely at Fiona Staple's work and her technique, which is very loose and involves the various tones and colours standing out individually without a blend in sight!

She colours completely in Photoshop and i've been having a go at trying out her style with some quick life drawing modelling from Quickposes.

Life Drawing poses lined and coloured in Photoshop

Fiona Staples influenced portrait of Marvel Hero, Monica Rambeau aka Captain Marvel / Photon / Spectrum

Another Fiona Staples influenced portrait - Miles Morales aka Spiderman

Research Poster

We're finally submitting our research posters for Janette's model today so i've decided to post it.

My programme of study will explore how music can influence character design and storytelling. I've been focusing on The Little Mermaid, FLCL and animations from Animusic.

Over Christmas i'd like to find different examples and do some testing / experiments of my own.

I also want to flesh out my timeline for my project so I can make sure i'm hitting my own deadlines and being awesome.

Week 13: Semester 1 Reflection

Ahhh well it's been a VERY quick 3 months, and my experience of animation so far has been fun, confusing and agitating (mainly because I want to be heaps better).

I really want this blog to fully track my progress and remind myself why I'll be doing certain things over others (in case I have a crisis of confidence and try to so something that's well outside my skill set). So frequently posting really helps me to gather my thoughts, judge where I'm at, but also make sure I've completed the course requirements!

The key things i've learned so far:
I REALLY enjoy modelling
It has the same therapeutic affect on me that painting does, and i've really enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Rigging is magical and addictive
It's still insane to me how it all works, and although I found myself re-rigging my 3D model a few times, I didn't find myself that annoyed, just determined to finish it. Ridiculous.

Scripts are my best friend
The script writing talks have been SO helpful, and again I found myself enjoying them a lot more than I thought. I've been struggling a while with my comic project and I now know this is because it had no structure in place.

I have a habit of trying to skip to the end, and I was approaching my comic (and my writing in general) without any bones or structure in place. I've now taken the time to properly brainstorm, write, rewrite and finally generate a script that I can now create my comic panels from. I'll be applying the same format to my final project. Good times

Character Development - Again, I sometimes have the habit of trying to skip to the final article, but i'm now taken the time to learn about and develop my characters, visually and story wise.

In regards to my personal project, the development and 3D process' have helped me think A LOT about how I want to move my character forward, and make potential changes.

I really want to try out different styles to try something new expand my own skill set. And if I choose to go 3D I think I could create something really cool if I try something different from my normal style. I'm considering making my character a lot more stylised - potentially making her head bigger and her body longer. I want these changes to also influence the way she moves, and thinking about music I love the idea of her resembling a crotchet.

It may or may not work, but i'll be developing this idea over Christmas.

The long and thin people of the TSB adverts

Big head: Susan from Monsters vs Aliens

Over Christmas I really want to practice my 2D animation and do some line tests. I'm also going to have a go at 3D animating a few simple and complex movements. I think doing this will be the only way for me to determine which route i'll go down for my final project.

I also need to do a timeline!

Render Me This

Here's my final render for my 3D model!

After some Multipassing, Nuking and Photoshoping it's completely done. I had a couple of issues resetting my multipass render settings (mainly due to mia_materal_x_passes), but after I worked all those out Maya decided to be nice to me.

My Nuke Tree and various Nodes

Render Happy Times

A quick comparison before Nuke/Photoshop and after!