Character Design

Another post another assignment.

This time the assignment was about character design.

I really look forward to this assignment, always when I have work so far I have been lacking of concepting

and drawing my ideas. This time I was forced to do it.



The criteria:



1: Find a piece of text from a pre-1960 story about gangs.



2: Be influenced by this chosen text to design a character that looks part of a 'gang' of other characters.



3: Present your final character design in a model sheet.



4: Model a minimum of three accessories from your character design.

One accessory must be footwear (or barefoot).



6: In the model sheet include renders of accessories ( 2d and 3d elements)

and visualization of character analysis.



7: Complete a minimum of one (1) full color hyper-linked reflective journal post

with criteria outlined number 4 below and here.



1: FIND THE STORY



Well this part turned out to be the hardest. "What do I want to make?" and "what is a gang?" I defined "gang"

like a group of people doing or believing in the same thing or got together for some other reasons.

The thing is they are together, like a group/gang.

Do I want to make mafias? no. to cliché.

What about gangsters? Was there so many hardcore gangsters in 1960 that wasn't mafia?

pre-1960? That means we can go further back right. What about a stone age gang? Indians? Social communities? Book club?















Allot of good ideas but what I ended with was a World War II dog fighting group.

What made me pick them?

The dog fighting gang filled most of my criteria. They existed pre-1960. They had allot of cool accessory and looks.

They got an interesting story and there is easy to find information about them.



The main source of my knowledge.

http://www.354thpmfg.com/

Since there was allot of fighting groups in the World War I decided to pick especially one "The 354th Pioneer Mustang Fighter Group"



The problem here is that, there wasn't a special piece of text describing them.

The text about this group contained more about the war, there missions and what they did under the world war, what they used but not too much who they were.



"The 354th Fighter Group existed on paper only from the 15th to the 23rd of November 1942 and, on the latter date, the first personnel were assigned to it,

the first assigned being one Captain and three 1st Lieutenants, all medics from the 20th Fighter Group. On the next day four T/Sergeants and twenty-four privates were assigned

and joined from Hammer Field. Our little bird was getting its feathers fast."



So there were some medics some privates. Not telling me much. What I do know is that they were mostly North Americans.

There is allot of pictures of the pilots on the homepage. So even though the text isn't describing them I can look at them myself.

 To conclude this. I don't have any specific text but more overall taking information from the whole page and story line.

                

2: Be influenced by this chosen text

As said earlier, there was no "text" and I let myself get influenced by more than just one factor.

When reading the story and watching the pictures I figured

"This guys need stamina and a large amount of attitude to survive this"

The pilots of 354th Fighter Group were often used as escort for the big bombers. Since they flew the new mustang plains, they were the only one to manage such a distance "from Britain all the way inn to Berlin, fight there then flew back again"

The problem is, all this is mental not physical and doesn't show on the character. When i read the story I build a image in my head about this characters.

Brave, strong, intelligent, skilled. But when i look at the images they were all regular men. All taken from different groups mashed together to form this fighting group.

They were privates and medics, some with children and a wife back home, some not.

 So the idea for my character is this:

I want him to be small, because that gives him character.

I want him to have a bit of a South American, Mexican look. Maybe his parent's origin is from there somewhere.

Since that dark hair, and ruff look matches well my impression of a dog fighter.

I want him to have a reason to join the group and that is his father was fighting in the First World War as a pilot,

and he follows up in the World War 2 in the same footsteps.

The pilots is often stuffed with gear that's needed, not giving to much room for changes. But I want to put in something that gives him a unique look.

Maybe some tokens from his family, of who he is, for what his fighting for or something.



Drawing

I had already before the assignement desided to do this in photoshop, but still I did a couple of sketches on paper since the early early rufs are often easier there.

When I got a general look of what I wanted I recreated that in PS without scanning in the paper work.

After the rough sketch I went over it with fine lines on a new layer.

 So here is the character. But he looks boring. And he needs more stuff. The silhouette isn't interesting or appealing to look at I need more details.



3 Present your final character design



Not much to say. I followed the impression I got from the text and mixed them with the reference images I found.

With this references I added more details and lifted the character to a whole new level.

A character with a lot of details and a interesting shape always gets more appealing then a boring one, like my first sheet before I upgraded it.

The upgrade were simply done with watching images and painting black lines on a new layer. Then cleaning it all up and collapse it to the main "line" layer

The final Model sheet needed to contain 3 views of the character, Front, side and back view. Only the front view needed color render.

The back part was the easiest to do after I got the front done. I selected the whole body and flipt it.

Then erased all the details in the core of the drawing and then added details for the back.

The more tricky one was the side view. The best trick I found to work was shaping in the bigger forms with help from the guide lines that you can find in PS.

After that was done it was all about adding the details again. A taunting task but well gifted when done.

The coloring process were fairly easy. I found a color image of some WW 2 pilot gear and just used approximately the same colors.

Having the images floating on my sheet and just using the color picker to get what I wanted.

I must admit, I don't know if the US army have had that much color theory. I think Army gear is more maid for "not get seen" then "hey here is me, look interested!"

            Jamie k. Field posing gladly with his pilot gear.



Profile:

-Jamie k. Field

-38 years old

-His origin is from South America. But under World War 1 his family moved to North America.

-He got a wife back home and 2 children. A boy and a girl.

-He started his carrier as a medic, later got recruited to the Pilot group.

-As a quick learner he picks up fast and was in the air in no time, he's father, that was a pilot himself might have an influence on this part.





I hope the viewer can recognize this character as a pilot. Maybe not exactly WW 2 but at least a pilot from that time period.

I think the viewer can struggle with placing him in a special group of pilots since they look really much the same.

Only think that might hint is a logo from there group.

But as long as they can read it's a pilot from around the right time period I'm fairly happy with what I have made.


4 Model a minimum of three accessories



So the design is set all that's needed now is to model 3 parts of it.

One of them must be footwear so why not just start with that.

I already had a good idea of how this one was going to look. I followed the consept, but in the end I wasn't too happy about the result.

I got some feedback on the model and figured I should do some changes.

Instead of a flat sole, as in the concept, I when with a more dynamic shape. Adding more realism to the object.

I also removed the bolts at the toes because it made it look too much like a builder boot.

The second model I wanted to make was the goggles, since they are really characteristic to the pilots.

Also here I went a bit outfromt the original consept. The consept drawing were more just default goggles, I wanted mine to have more story behind it.

So I made him a pair of his father's old goggles, giving it a more interesting look.

The last model I'm making is he's armband with the high pressure clock on. It might be hard to see since we were not to texture these models.

But it's the clock on a leather strap with fur along the edges (were to be made with alpha maps on planes and a dollar)

"money" wrap between the strap and his arm hanging for represent his nationality.

CONCLUTION

I have really enjoyed this assignment. I have learned a lot when I comes to drawing, something I need to give a lot of credit to the teacher for.

I have never been a painting person, but after this assignment I have started enjoying it and will for sure keep drawing.

The good part is that, drawing was exactly what I was hoping to learn more about this year.

Animate the...

ANIMATION!!

This is the planning stage, something every one should/must do before starting anything at all.

In this case we already have a known “story” we need to make this character lift that object, and it must be heavy…….DONE!

No, wait a second!

How is the character like, old, young, strong, happy, sad, etc?

Is he human, animal, curious, angry?

Is he only going to lift it and drop it? Walk with it, keep it, put it someplace? Will something happen from his actions?

I guess we need to plan this a little bit after all.

My lift animation:

After testing different characters I found an alien type to be the most fun to work with. Not just a standard boring rig. Will catch more interest.

Since this is a alien character I got more freedom for what he can do.

The character is suppose to be almost as ordinary as a common human. (just better looking)

I want him to be curious since he’s some kind of creature and doesn’t quite know what this round object is. This I want to force my self to make a better anticipation state in the start of the animation, because I know I have bin bad on that part in previous animations.

  

 So Character is:

Alien

Male

Good looking

Curious

No special abilities except his tail and antennas.

Now how is the happening going to take place? I want him to move toward the ball, looking around him self to create a bit unsecured state. Then let him prepare himself for the lift. The lift going to be a standard lift with nothing more or nothing less. When he got the ball up he going to walk with it before he needs to pull it up again since it slides down in his lap. After giving it a extra power push. He throws it up on a shelf. Were it knocks some other round stones and they all fall down.

With that story I think I got it all.

Anticipation in the start, telling what his state of mind is. Doing the lift as the assignment is about and giving it a little interest when his about to drop the ball but gets it up again. And a reaction to the ending to put some fun inn to the story as well.

For this animation I did not make a planning sheet were I time what to do over the two weeks we have at our disposal. I dint find it necessary to a miner animation like this.

Now when I have the character and the story ready, its time to the second part of the planning.

And that is were do I go from here.

Every one have there own way to get from a to b to c to d to f and so on.

My way is like this.

Thumbnails

After the idea was typed on to paper it was time to draw the story in thumbnails, were I only add the most important frames, that tells the story. Also called Key frames. I’m not a drawer, but that’s not the most important at this stage.

“This is what I ended up with after restrictions from my teacher. Maybe not restrictions, but advices. “ Shorting it down helps me get the lift in focus instead of all the things around.

Animatic

This is a part animators usually do after the sketching to get some basic timing and get the whole story in a quick little animation. No need for this at this assignment so we jump to the next one.

Pre-Viz

Also something we jump over at this one, jump along!

Blocking

Here comes the funny part. I love blocking, that’s when your doing pose to pose animating. This part is really easy if you have made a good thumbnail sheet. Because then you put the first thumbnail pose in the first frame. Then jump a few frames aahead put the next pose. Jump along and another pose and just keep plotting inn the poses from the thumbnails. This part is so giving since already now you can see this coming to life.

  

“Technical”

In my animation, I animate with auto tangent on, because I like to set the step keys on in the curve editor. I also selected the whole rig and added keys on each “Key frame” to avoid getting slides and silly walks when I turn the step keys of later on. I also did a difference of 10 frames for each key pose, giving me a bit more room then every 5 frames. After placing out all the keys I started timing them.

 

Rough

This is also a really giving stage this is when you start plotting inn the in betweens “key frames” were you make sure, like arm movements don’t go trough the body from pose 1 to pose 2 and so on. This stage is also really important for timing because here is when you start moving the “key frames” from the blocking stage to make sure the in betweens you make now have good timing between the poses. Keep your tongue at bay now, because this stage must be correct or ells you get a rough time later on.

“Technical”

Here I started moving the “key frames” from the blocking stage and kept clicking the play button to see the timing, I also made sure the step keys were off and everything were back to auto in the curve editor. So now it was just to put in poses and animation between the other ones to create overlaps and in-betweens. Fun enough since there is still not enough keys on the table for you to mess it up quite yet. A little thing I also did was doing a “reduce key” function in the curve editor removing unneeded keys. Cleaning up after the block.

Fine animation.

Here comes the pain. After the block and the rough your starting to see some animation on the table, you get really exited and want to putt in the last effort, unfortunate you now got a ton of keys down there, making it a pain to navigate, time stuff. Bones and animation starts overlapping MORE then you actually want. Timings get off. You start moving something and the animation loosing the grip of the ball.

BUT! And yes it’s a but. If you have done everything clean and good in the previous part, this should be no problem if you keep focus. Because this is were you get the fine details inn. Like fingers scratching, tails waving, and all secondary animation. Its like putting a big awesome turbo smooth all over the animation, at least that’s what your aiming for at this stage.

“Technical”

This is the stage I failed a bunch of times, I came to this stage 4 times, lost my motivation and went (file- reset scene) and did the WHOLE thing over again. So I become really good at the blockings after some time. Finally I came to this stage with a ok key system, things looked ok so I manage to move on. I added secondary motion on the tale, antennas, fingers. Made some timing adjustments and gravity to the loose parts. Kind of hard to explain the keying system here since it was a lot of back and forth all over the place, but I got good use of the curve system that helped me layer out the different parts of animation.

Happenings

If you have read the above text you might think this went really silky smooth, well it dint. As mentioned it restarted this like many times. But I think I have earned from this, and have learned a lot from doing the same things over and over. Seeing what works and what don’t. The teacher also helped me retain my creativity. Shorting down my animation and telling me ”mats, your bad at this, don’t go up the mountain only to fall down on the other side” Well that’s not truly a quote from her, but something like that. And that was an eye opener, because shorting down on the animation and the ideas, like not adding the last happening of all the balls falling down, gave me time to tweak other stuff. Also not adding that long start gave me enough motivation and less keys to work with, so I actually manage to get past the “fine stage”

So the “deleted scenes” and ideas that weren’t created was the anticipation in the start telling his state of mind. Also removing the ending and letting him go more right on the act of lifting the ball “since the lift is the core of the assignment”

What I wish for.

For later animations I wish to get more time to actually put a deeper meaning to the animation and give the character more personality and emotions then I got in this one. Also a face would help for that in the future. I also hope that after all this I will in later animations manage to go from A,B to C instead of A to B and back to A to B and back to A and to B and back to A to B to C.

Overall this was a good assignment, giving us a more advance one would only makes people like me confused and maybe not even capable of finishing it.

Animation raw from 3ds max.






Final edited Animation

practice

So the animation has started. Here is a practice lift.

The story

Version 1 of the story board sketch. The red dots are key poses while blues are more the in betweens, the images that are not really needed to tell the rough story.

Resources

heavy weight lifting en Yahoo! Video

Ok, that one was just for fun^^




I really liked this one. its a straight forward lift, from not a over powered superman. its a round object something that reflects the assignment. It also gives a good front view of the act.



Whats cool about this video is to see how he prepares himself, moving around on the stone to find a good angel and a good grip, clearing the surroundings, Anticipation!
You even get to see some walking with the stone.




This clip shows the same guy, lifting the same ball multiple time, giving a nice repetition of the movement, also showing how he adjust him self after a bad lift, and how the lift changes as he get tired. Even got a female lift. Bonus!


I also find some good information from page 256 to -268
in the Animation Survival kit book I mentioned in earlier posts. Its copyright material so I ain't gonna post it here. But for them who got the book. check it out!

It tells about anticipation, and lifts exactly as the assignment and other methods to create weight.

Moving on with the assignement.

The school shared some cool rigs with us but we were told to pick one we have used before

" This is NOT the time to learn a new rig"

well well, Im really rookie on this rigs anyway, so I think I gonna go for the new CAT rig in 3ds max 2011 They look great, easy to use, no faces and good looking characters that will help me tell the story. Also i can use the awesome F1 button if i get inn trouble with it. Not something you can with custom rigs if they screw up.

1 point for me figuring the first step

what rig to use ? - check
Gather resources -
Now lets gather references weeee. lets move to the youtube and surfe the world wave web!

Edit: I almost forgot i had this book at hand.

http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284

A really great animation book. I used it quite a bit last year, and I'm for sure gonna find some usefulness in this book this year to.

The first Assignement

Heavy Lift!

Ok, then we were ready for the first school assignment.

I quote

"Create a full-body, final, personality lift animation using any rig of your choosing.

The lift should be of a spherical shaped object, although does not have to be completely round.

The character animation should reflect that the lifted object to be VERY heavy in weight."

So there you have it. Doesn't sound to hard does it..... hmmm also the rig is not allowed to have a face or face expressions.

What I gonna start with, is first of all deside what rig i want to work with.
Gather some references for the animation, and storry.
Then I gonna plan out the animation either in drawing or inn a rough 3d sketch, or maybe both! ooooh.

So that was the introduction to the assignment.

School asignement 02

Norman McLaren - Dots (1940)

To start this one off. I have never seen something like this, and i have no clue were to go if i wanna see things like this,  maybe except youtube and use some crazy search word. To be honest i dint like it. Was boring, as good as no story, and i think this movie falls under the category music more then it does animation. The look of the movie is kinda sad to, but it really reflects the old generation tho. so i guess its good in a old way. But definitely not something i wanna great in the near future.

If i were to spice this up, i would use different colors, advance the 2d stuff over to 3d and maybe add some collision effects together with some more advance music then just some beat box.







Fantasmagorie (1904)

Well i kinda like this one, it reminded me of my first introduction to animation, were i made frame by frame 2d stick-figures animation in Adobe Flash. to compare this one to Norman McLaren - Dots (1940) that comes 36 years later i really really enjoy this one much better. It doesn't have colors but at least some sort of a story or a red line. Even tho the artist must have bin sky high when making this i enjoyed watching it. But even tho i like it its not something i would be interested in or would spend my time looking for just to see similar animation clips.
But all credits to the creators that made this 100 years ago. Well done!






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Cafe Serre (2009)

Here we got something i really enjoy, a color full look, a funny strry and characters you just gotta love.
It this kinda cartoonish style I'm looking for in my own animations in the future. A pixarish cartoonish look. Were you have descent realism, but still the cartoon feel to everything.
Not much to criticize on this animation. It got good animation, fun story line, and good look. The look might not be that original since most of the shorts produced in this time period has this look. but well well.
To find more shorts like this i would look at any 3d related pages, most of them contains movies like this or atleast links to sites that contains it. Not hard to find.


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Pocoyo (2007)

Great looking characters, fun story and some nice extreme poses, and now its the child in me talking. This is a child animation, something you notice very fast on the simple look. But you need something like that if you want the smaller people in the community to keep up with the story. Its some fast move meant at times but much of that is balanced with breathing breaks and extreme poses. The stories are often a bit thin, but not something to complain on. Color full, fun, easy to watch and entertaining.
If i want more of this i would look for childish animation and animations for child on kids tv. Its a nice in between, between tom a jerry and shrek.




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Ryan (2004)

This is for sure a interesting movie, for people who like this sort of grey, dark, smokey style. Its a animation made with allot of feelings and a story. My personal opinion, is that the animation is way to long, i fell of the story after 5 minutes and never manage to get back in. i saw the movie like 3 times trying to figure what this was about. Never got it, might just be me, thats slow, but again that means this animation ain't that user friendly. About the graphics, its very good looking and creatively made.
A good animation with a bit hard to chew story.






Cyber Evolution (2007)

I don't get it, i just don't get it.its for sure fantasy as the title says but its just to much noise, grain and dark colors, mixed with shaking and allot of things happening at the same time, if you new to 3d and just like to watch a short animation you will be flipped of your chair and have no clue whats going on. The movie its self looks really homemade, its interesting its own way, really surrealistic. But not something i would recommend for everyone.

I just don't know what to say to this animation. I don't think its easy to make something like this, but why put so much in it when its so hard to see whats made with all the noise is my question. I ain't gonna look up more of these videos. The best part is the beginning and the end.





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Toyota / APT Prod. (2006)

A exceptional exemplar of professional commercial work. The overall work got really good quality to it, it only show was necessary to tell the story. And represent what it wants to show in a short and good manner. Nothing to complain on. This is something you will find on the TV, since its something thats suppose to reach people and sell.