First ever

Before it's too late...I'm posting the first character concept I inked for this project. Although the idea has evolved a lot, I'm still pursuing this high contrast for the final look of the animation. I think it's going to be fun to compare the final renders with these first images.

the front view

Although we didn't follow this drawing by heart, this is the basis for the new take I did on the main character. A more realistic body but still a pretty cartoony face.

completely new cockroach

A totally new model is here. My friend Cris Bolson showed me a little of Silo software and helped me out to make an all quad model. It's so much better and closer to what I want. Let's hope that this is the one that I will rigg!

Phil Tippett and his studio

Thanks to my friend, the animator Glenn, and some of his Animation Mentor friends, I could tag along with them and visit Tippett studio. It was a wonderful afternoon and I got surprised at how the studio is way bigger than I've thought. Actually, if you check Phil Tippett on iMdb, you can see how long and bulk his work for movies is.

Besides the implosion site, I "visited" two building basements and took some pictures as well. Now I have a great number of visual references to help me out not only modeling the environment, but also to give the mood of it.

references

This week I was very fortunate. One of the things: I had the opportunity to see a building implosion site. It's just on Market St., a few blocks before the Art Institute. I took lots of pictures to help as visual reference for my short. I also started to learn how to use ZBrush and went to visit Tippett Studio, more about that in another post!

pipeline for modeling and texturing this quarter

if I accomplish that at Andrew Klein's class, I will be in heaven:

Week 2 – start the new cockroach models

Week 3 – Refine new model body and start the head

Week 4 – Prepare new textures, bumps, replacement maps

Week 5 – Siggraph and continue applying the textures

Week 6 – Re-check the final model and all the layered shaders

Week 7 – Character faces built and refinements with Z-Brush

Week 8 – Both Final characters finished

Week 9 – Start re-modeling the main environment and objects

Week 10 – Refining environment Refining objects and apply specific shaders

Week 11 – Putting all I have so far in place and apply environment lighting

Render passes tests for final project

Volt with charcoal

talking about charcoal...I've got so excited at the charcoal classes with models that I've started to draw quick skecthes of my other characters, like this " High Voltage", he is a character I've created like 11 years ago and still LOVE to draw him whenever I can.

Charcoal for a change

This is a study I did at Prof. Catherine Fippo's class. The model stroke a pose and I transformed him in a cockroach. Charcoal rules (at least when you don't need all that detail anyway)!

the rigth colors made all the difference in the world

This illustration I did a couple of months ago to give myself a better idea of what I wanted for the short. Actually, it's pretty close to the kind of color, mood and composition I want. The thing now is translate that to the 3D world!

wacom on photoshop over and over

This is a quick color key sample I did for the first scene, thinking about flat space and contrast between cool and warm colors, although I don't want the short to look that saturated.

Flat and limited space

Other thing I'm looking for is using everything I've learned from Prof. Valerie Mih and Richard Walsh about Visual Story. So, I'm looking for the camera angles that tells the story best. For the first scene I will look forward to use a lot of "flat space" and some "limited space" as well. That's why I've rendered this frame like this.

Talking about Neil Miller, finally I've got my hands on "the ball" and did some HDRI test with my classmates in front of the school building. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Caricature using just the mouse

I hope Neil Miller doesn't mind to post his caricature on my blog...
(for those who don't know, he is a great lighting and texturing teacher here at Art Institute)

Warm lights as well...

I've applied some warm lights to this part of the scene, creating more focus to the main character. But I still have a way to go, from the fish modelling, to the bump maps to shadows...

Cool ligths

Now it's getting closer to what I want, I'm starting to get happy with the lights. the cigarette at the back it's the model I'm happy the most so far.

Finally I did all the main models for the short, applied basic texture and started to get the felling on how this is developing for the first scene. Anyway, now I have to refine everything, from modelling to texturing, and apply good lights.

color key collage

this is a collage I did to start getting the idea of the kind of color and mood I want for the short, let's see how it develops...