Week 50: Sack it off

More daily practice. I think this one was a bit rushed, I could definitely have worked more on the weighting especially. But its good I can recognise that



Task 11: Flour Sack Kicking a Ball

Task 12: Change in Character Emotion The hilarity of it all.


Task 13: Character Jumping Over a Gap I need to flesh this one out...

Task 13: Standing Up From a Chair
Was a bit lazy with this one, but I guess my main aim was to get the key poses in - i've been working in 1s so i'm trying to break that habit kinda...


I also decided to sculpt the creepiest thing i've ever seen in my life... and abuse the polypaint tool I present, Day 7 of my Speed Sculpt. The creators of Stephen Universe must be quaking in their boots

Day 8: in my attempt to reacquaint myself with ZSpheres, ZBrush turned on me today. So this was less of a speed sculpt and more of a lesson in confusion and patience. Im planning to make this one a longer project.

Its so fiddly sometimes ack. Hence DOUBLE. 

Brushes, Bricks and Balls

Speed Sculpt Day 2:

Did this in 20 mins using Dynamesh... my main aim was to see what I could achieve in this time and see where I lag / faff around, as as per usual its with trying to add in as much detail as possible too soon, and I didn't even achieve this haha. I need to get better at blocking rough shapes then building on these

Speed Sculpt Day 3:

Done in about 35 mins - quick attempt at my face taking learnings from yesterday, like using the move and mask tools better, and the move brush.

Speed sculpt day 4: A slow and unfinished version of the Dr himself, Mr Peter Capaldi. I must commit to finishing these. But again, learning new things as I go along. This was about 25 mins. A sloppy 25 mins I must admit.

And my Animators Island for Task 3:

Decided to add in the ball as well to push myself a bit and get better with timing.

Getting less rusty on the principles, and visualising testing things  a lot more, especially where weight is concerned!
Annnddd here's Task 4: Simple character head turn!

Task 5: Character head turn with anticipation 

Task 6: Character Blinking - which oddly enough I found more tricky. Slowing stuff down always is

Week 19: Going Live, Going Hungry, Going for Pizza

Yep.

Been doing a lot of group work this week for our Going Live project - its going to be taking up a bit more time than I realised, so I need to reorganise my schedule to make sure that i'm maintaining my final project.

What's good is that it's given me the chance to experiment a bit with more stylised designs - which again is something out my comfort zone. I'm definitely getting more comfortable with doing it, and its been fun to try out different things!

My designs for the matriarchs and ogre for our Going Live project

I've also carried on with my daily pose practices to keep my comfortable with anatomy, and test our different movements, and after talking to Barry about my project, I think this has been a good idea. 

From the beginning I knew that this project had to be simple (cause it's just me), which meant I had to choose an area of focus. And while my programme of study is music's contribution to character design, I know this would be addressed and tested in the pre-production process. Which left the story, environment and animation to contend with. By keeping the story and environment simple it means I can place a large majority of my focus on animating - mainly the dance sequence. 

By practising poses I feel like i'm gearing myself up for working on different angles, positions and perspectives. I'm going to start doing daily dance pose practices too so there's a direct link! I've potentially got Cristina to do the dance sequence which would be great! And I really want to give myself a couple of months to work on it and refine it!

Once i've finalised the rig and weight painted i'm hoping to start doing tests at the beginning of the month.

Success and hunger.

Music to mull and art to:
Billie Holiday: Solitude


RIGGING UPDATE: Although I may not need it, I decided that I wanted to create rig-able eyelids for my character so she can blink on demand!! Whilst I was at it I also rigged the eyes so they move on demand. 

Took me a while to find the best way to do this, and although I considered blendshapes, I felt i'd have more control if I created and rigged the lids. Now I need to work out how to attach the eyelashes and do blendshapes them i'm done!
RIGGING UPDATE- UPDATE: I've been working on my blend shapes which has been lots of fun. And FINALLY after 2 days i've figured out how to get my eyelashes to follow my eyelids sweep blink!!  After looking at heaps of tips (and non working) I figured out that by selecting the eyelash, then the eyelid and hitting WRAP I could get them to work together!

Here is my character throwing some serious shade.

I've tweaked a couple of the vertices on the lashes so they don't cross over to dramatically with their opposites, but all in al VERY happy! I'm probably now going to need to add a jaw bone to get the teeth and tongue to connect to for my blendshapes

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