Smile

This is an untouched 3d render. I like the toony-ness that is coming out. It still lacks the spontaneity of a drawn image. I chose this style so I could seamlessly and easily retouch/modify after the render, so I think that can be overcome.

Back-hoe operator

I did some sketching in Photoshop tonight, and I like what came out! These are some concepts for the supporting character in my backhoe story.

I really like the extreme characterization. I don't usually push things this far. If he stays this extreme, I'll have to re-work the dragon somewhat to fit this style. As I translate my characters into 3D, they invariably slide away from characterization into a more realistic style. I think this is an almost inevitable symptom of the "realness" of working in 3D. You can't cheat the same way as in a drawing--at least not without making your model a nightmare to work with!

shot 2 blocking B

extended the action for this shot.

Regular 'ol animation

I finally took a little time to play with PAP 4.0 today. It's pretty intuitive (for something as complicated as animation, anyway).

shot 2 blocking

Shot 2. Lunch arrives.

toads1blocking*

I'm finally animating! I had to very consciously make myself stop tweaking and begin animating. I can tweak and nit-pick with the best of them, but I need some practice animating. So here is a first-pass blocking render of the first shot. Isn't it exciting?

You will notice that the toad just "jumps" from one place to another. Right now I have simply blocked out the action with rough timing. I think  I will try to make myself block in the entire project before I do any "real" animation. I am not doing an storyboards for this project, so I'll really be discovering a lot of the action as I block the shots. I don't want to get bogged down in detail of animating just yet.

*toad project shot 1 blocking pass

Crunchy!

Whoa! Than looks Crunchy!

Here's a WIP and a bit of a spoiler. From this you should be able to gather what this short project is about.

Smash

He reminds me of the Incredible Hulk in this pose. Just a little update about...not much. I did some tweaking today to improve his proportions and I worked on his facial control rig earlier in the week (evidenced by his glowering eye brows).

The suspenders are killing me

I like suspenders. I don't wear them anymore (thought I did go through a phase in college...) but I still like them. There is something very manly about a hefty pair of braces.

Image via Wikipedia

The epitome of manliness. (Note the suspenders!)

But they are a PAIN to animate. They seem so simple... but actually they are very difficult to work with. The body of this character is very flexible. Each bone of the body affects the shape of the body, and the suspenders somehow have to remain on the surface of the body shape as all those bones move around.

 If I wanted to do it by brute force (meaning meticulously animating the suspenders manually) the rigging would not be a problem. But I'd rather spend some time rigging ahead of time so that I could just tweak the suspenders to keep them looking good and not have to focus on them during animation. If possible.

I am cautiously optimistic that I can make them look good enough for my purposes. But I don't want to spend too much time on suspenders. How much effort is the aesthetic advantage gained by suspenders worth? Would my time be better spent giving him a belt and forgetting the suspenders altogether? Probably. But I won't give in quite yet!

Smiley

Who's your dentist?

This is a WIP shot of the last major "character" of the project. It may end up having dozens of cousins, uncles, etc., but he will be the main attraction. It is loosely based on my memories of other artists' depictions of actual pterosaurs. So I guess that makes him (her?) authentic!

(What, you don't see the resemblance?) Image via Wikipedia

I did decide to go with a bold red color scheme for this one. It will have quite a bit more color once I do some textures for it. But that probably won't come for a while. I hate making textures, and sometimes they make animating less responsive, so I may wait a loooong time before I do them. Or if I get inspired, they may come sooner! I still have some more work to do for this. I see a medium-large crest in his future...

You're going down!

"You're going down, hand control bugs!"

I spent about an hour reassigning points to the bones in his hands. This will result in smoother, but not perfect deformations. But with the level of realism I'm aiming for, a few funky finger creases won't bother me. I thought I was going to have to reinstall the rig because of the hands. But I found out I just didn't understand the controls for the fingers! So after tonight I will turn my attention back to the pterosaurs and the zeppelin (which I haven't really shown yet).

Color Schemes

When I started working on this project I wanted it to be very "pretty." I tried to be deliberate in choosing my colors, instead of just randomly slapping different colors on different parts of the characters. The result was this outfit, which we all now know and love:

(Yes, I also mourn the loss of the suspenders, but I didn't want to fight them through the whole animation process. Only a few new frontiers per project, please.)

Back to the point. Today I discovered an online color scheme chooser. Using my base inspiration (the orange shirt) I made this monochromatic color scheme:

Kind of uncanny how closely my previously picked colors matched the generated color scheme! But it gets even more interesting. Here are shots of the critters I created for the project:

(In the interest of full disclosure, I tweaked these colors to match the palette, but the original colors were very similar. I just didn't remember the exact colors after-the-fact when I made the screen grabs.)

And finally, here is an overall color palette I generated based on the starting color (the orange shirt):

Yup. There's the shirt, there's the pterosaur, And there's the shark. I wonder what color the next major beastie in this project will be? I really was not planning on having a bright red critter, but now that I look at this palette, I'm seriously considering it. But will my artistic vision over rule the generated palette? Only time will tell.

Stretching

There are a few pose tests just to see how the rig reacts. So far, pretty nicely. There are a few strange things going on, but it look pretty nice to me.

Flight

well, the rigging went faster than I thought it would, thanks to TSM2. And my old wing rigging system works better than I remembered it did. So I have flight. and wings that fold and crease nicely, even when the pterosaur is in all kinds of crazy poses (those will come later). But for now, I am happy... and I need to go to bed.

Argh! It was supposed to loop so you didn't have to click "play" over and over. Sorry.

The Dark Night

In creating models to animate, there is a dark period. Modeling is enjoyable. My drawings or imaginations gain three-dimensional form. After modeling comes boning, rigging, and smart skinning. The controls for 3d are easy to think about as "bones." A bone to move the arm, leg, etc. But it isn't always easy thinking about where to put those bones to make my creations move like they should!

After bones, a rig must be created to animate the model. The rig is the controls used to animate the model. Most models get stuck in modelling limbo for a long period of time. (The oil shark was a notable exception. No legs/fingers/toes makes things go much quicker!) And then rigging a pterosaur... But after the night comes the morning! (Maybe he'll be done this week.)

Trusty Animal Sidekick

Every fisherman needs a faithful pterosaur at his side!

(P.S. It will have eyeballs when it is done.)

...RAWRR!

Dun-nuh, duh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh...

He Moves!

I now have a partially rigged face and skeleton. It's a nice milestone, but it shows me a lot more than needs work, too.

Happy/Angry Eyes

I'm having fun with this guy. When the character begins to have expression instead of being a lifeless manikin, it is so great! He even has ANGRY EYES!