Character - Submission

Character Design Lessons
Character Sessions - Week 3
Character Sessions - Week 4

Character - "Lester Sr." Turnaround

And, rounding off the trio, Lester Sr. the grumpy piano player situated at the Saloon that Frasier and Snidely have their altercation in. 

Character - Prop - Frasier's Mirror

Below is Frasier's incredibly goofy pocket mirror. As the mirror forms the crux of the short, I thought it should reflect the silliness of the characters and echo the farce of their masculinities. This was the most direct way I could see of doing that. 

Character - "Frasier" Turnaround

And straight up after the Snidely turnaround is the hero, Frasier. 

Character - "Snidely" Turnaround

Here's the turnaround for "Snidely", the villain of my character project. 

Narrative - Reflective Statement

Looking back on the last three months it seems apropos to acknowledge the difficulty presented in navigating the pitfalls of group work. Focusing on the positives is the theme here though, and I'm glad to say I feel as if my confidence in myself has been bolstered. I feel as if I have improved on my somewhat 'stop/start' approach to work. But on the whole the pacing, and my pace within the project never faltered. I feel that my own performance in the group marked an improvement on disciplines I had begun to cultivate in the first year, and afforded me a certain sense of progression in terms of my maya skills. I am particularly proud of my rigging and skinning work in this project, since it was the first time I really started to problem solve, with the various and at the time disparate skills learned from the tutorials and from speaking with Alan.

It's been a fruitful experience and further hit home the difficulty of transporting concept art into assets within Maya, developed my skills in writing and visual storytelling - as initially I strived to be almost too literal in the direction I was going - so I'm happy to have produced something with an air of subtlety about it. And essentially, 'making it work' and seeing it come together in the final few weeks has been gratifying, and made the effort expended entirely worth it.

I've always been the sort that has focused on what I can learn from any situation, good or bad, how I can broaden my own skillset from it etc. And I can definitively say that the challenges and successes of this term have given me a lot to reflect upon going forwards.

I'm disappointed that the film remains unfinished as of yet, but I'm confident that the process of getting it to its current state has been a valuable enough experience.

Onwards, right?

Character - Frasier development

Quick update on "Frasier", the hero of my character project. I've played around with hand shapes, eyes, noses and ears just to further refine and hone the design. Justin has seen these and suggested I flatten the face a bit as currently it is too squished and pointed upwards. So my task for tonight is to fix that :)

Miki Animation Test

Thought I'd play about with a portion of the rig I created over the weekend. Improvements still need to be made to the eyes in particular, I'll use the method outlined in the Poma series of tutorials to better ensure greater control over Miki's face as it seems a bit manic at the moment. But otherwise, it's nice to see him moving!

 

Character Sessions - Week 4

Week 4's Character session with Justin saw us tasked with creating 3 characters within a setting. I was assigned the western (there's a theme here...) and went at creating the characters making sure to utilize shape to convey whether a character is a hero/villain or something else. 

I eventually came up with a heroic Native American Sheriff, replete with a mix-up between clothes you would normally associate with a Sheriff and that of a more traditional flavor. I then created the Villain of this world, which became a matriarch-like saloon girl, slightly older, who runs business in the town through her saloon, keeping officials in check with bribery and fear. The third character is that of the "Outlaw" - with a bit of a twist, as it's purely just a young boy, feral from growing up in the wild, still innocent, but definitely scrappy. 

"Pikatti" - Screenplay

So I thought I'd post this here as well as over at the Sugar Cube. Studios blog just to cover all my bases. This script is a response to advice given by Alan in our group meeting last week, taking on board his suggestion to have the Snow Fox put the dog collar on himself.

I'm quite happy with the direction this project is going in, We've got some really nice artwork being created which can be seen on the studio blog, as well as some preliminary soundscapes. All in all, an exciting first few weeks of progress :)

Narrative - Conflict, End Sentence & My roles at Sugar Cube.

Fresh off of yesterday's briefing - in which we selected our criteria for the project (see below) - our group (Sugar Cube. Studios) dished out roles/group responsibilities to one another. I think we handled the division of roles in a level headed manner, and smoothly; ultimately it was absolutely pleasing to watch this team come together and fill roles. Each of us had our immediate 'go to's' (mine was Screenwriting - which I was extremely happy to get).

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into the meat of this project. 

The encompassing blog post from Sugar Cube. Studios can be found here. 

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