Thesis Character CG Models

The CG models of the two main characters are progressing full speed ahead! They are being done in ZBrush, which I’m getting a hand with from a more experienced user. Most of my models have been done directly in Maya up to this point.

The Bookworm with his book bag.

Caterpillar in-progress shot.

Caterpillar with her wild “hair”.

Unfortunately, I was not chosen for the grants I applied for, so I will have to reconsider my choice of stop-motion for the animation. I am now researching alternatives, specifically CG animation done in a style to emulate stop-motion. I recently saw the Lego Movie, and I was quite impressed with the look that they achieved with that film. I have not ruled out the possibility of creating physical models of the characters later for fun, though, if time and money allows. Might be neat conversation pieces for the finished short. 😉

Texturing and rigging are up next!

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Modeling Final

As I make final preparations for my trip to California to go to the USC Cinema Arts Summer Program in about a week and a half, I finished up my wolf skeleton final project – as promised. I think it came out pretty well. I may go back and work on the textures some more – add some additional variations and flaws like pock marks in the individual bones – since my interests lie more in that direction and it could make a nice display piece.

I’m looking forward to seeing what USC’s labs are like, but I am looking forward to the drive just as much. Yes, I’m driving from the Chicago area to L.A. I hope to gather some good and interesting reference material in the form of photos, drawings/illustrations and such along the way, as well as while I’m out there. I will be posting on here in addition to my social media sites, so stay tuned!

More Modeling – Again

So I thought I should do another update on my current classwork. Again modeling = not my thing, but I’m putting forth an effort and wanted to show what’s presently taking up my free time. Here’s a snippet:

Two objects, one modeled to appear “light”, one to appear “heavy”. An interesting request, I know. I seem to have gotten the point across.

This next image is actually of my final project WIP. There were other assignments, but I’m skipping ahead a bit. It’s my blog, so I can do that. 😉

Yes, it’s a wolf skeleton. I’ve actually been working on this for a couple of weeks already, but I got behind on my posts. It still has a ways to go, but I have until June 8th to get it to its finished state. Bones are surprisingly detailed when you get up close and personal with them, especially the skull. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I’ll post the result after that deadline hits. And anything else I think of along the way, of course.

More Modeling

More silhouettes, only this time the idea was to model animals in “dynamic” poses as opposed to the boring static ones you generally see. Although those flat, static poses have their uses for rigging, we were looking to bring more life into our creations to see them more as real creatures with real anatomy.

You will probably recognize the lion from my previous effort. He has had his geometry modified to (hopefully) appear to be roaring. Again, the idea was to get the message across without a full render, so silhouettes are all you will get. 😉

The Newest Thing (for me) – Modeling

I freely admit I have no plans to be a Modeler. Of all of my interests in the field, it is one of the weakest. Maybe that is because I have only really ever modeled in Maya and a little in Max. Folks always like to tell me how ‘great’ Mudbox and Zbrush are, and they’re probably right. But for now, I am once again being instructed on how to model more efficiently in Maya, so that is where we’re at.

That is where these come in. The idea was to “speed model” five animals as quickly as possible using polygons and reference to get down their forms to recognizable shilouettes. We didn’t concern ourselves with attaching the meshes or refining details.

If you can tell what they are, that’s a good start. I won’t bother showing the full render, since it’s not much to look at. 😛 But that wasn’t the point, anyway.

So modeling is admittedly not my focus or strong suit, but I will learn as much as I can and do the best that I can. Otherwise what’s the point, right? 😉