Red Panda Animation Progress and Showreel Update

Hi guys, been working more on the animation I'm creating for The Red Panda Trust. I've been animating a jump that transcends into the companies logo. This project's been fun so far, had quite a lot of freedom to animate and design the film.

Also been trying to improve certain parts of my showreel, mainly my 3D animations. Been working on my lip synch so far, adding to the animation and modelling and texturing more objects into the scene. Here's some rendered screenshots, I'll have the new and improved animation soon.

Red Panda Trust Animation Progress

This some of the work I've been creating for an organisation called The Red Panda Trust since November last year. I was asked to produce a short animation as a test by the company, so I chose a run cycle to show my ability.

The first video was the original run cycle I created. I wasn't sure if they wanted a different design for the animation, so I created my own design to see if it worked. I knew from the beginning that I wanted the animation to look quite clean, so I decided to use Illustrator to copy over the original drawing. It was also a lot quicker to draw the posing for each frame using Illustrator.

Unfortunately, it wasn't what they were looking for. They liked the red panda's design, but they felt it targeted a too specific demographic. They wanted the design to replicate their current logo. After some heavy modifications to the frames, I also added a bit more motion to the torso as well to avoid it looking too static.

This video is a current walk cycle I'm working on. I'm close to finishing, but I still just need to fine tune the smoothness of the legs.

Back after LONG Hiatus/ Sonic Mass Effect

Happy new year to everyone. Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few months, my life's been very hectic recently. Thought as it's the new year I'd start posting again.

I finished my degree in Animation last year and got a 2:1 (YAY!), and I've been seeking out various work opportunities pretty much everywhere. I volunteered at Bristol Encounters Film Festival and did some work for Social Enterprise West Midlands last year (I'll update about that later). I also got a part-time job at Primark for some extra money. For now, I'll show you some of the work I've done in my spare time.

This is for a project I've been doing in my spare time entitled Sonic Mass Effect. As their two of my favourite games to play, I thought I'd have a go at merging various characters from both series to see how well they'd fit together.

First up was Sonic, who's merge with Shepard was a bit of a no brainer as their both the main playable characters. Part of the challenge was blending N7 armour with Sonic's simple design. I then learnt how Sonic's shoes were based on the same ones Michael Jackson wore in the 'Bad' video, so I wanted to portray a similar effect in his armour design. I took major influence from the suit he wore when performing Billie Jean on stage, particularly the single glove he wore. I also gave the armour a blue tint so that it would look more natural against Sonic's spines. Theres still a bit more detail I need to add on the final image, but it shouldn't take too long now.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Next up was Tails, who required a bit more thought as to which Mass Effect character he'd portray. It was a toss up between Joker or Garrus, but I decided to go with the latter due to their similar personalities (Slightly under confident, look up to main hero as a role model, tech savvy). Part of the challenge was still making Tails look cute in Garrus' armour, which wasn't particularly easy. I made the tails look feather-like to fit in with the Turians bird physique. This is my favourite one I've made so far, I just need to add the final details before he's completely finished.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Knuckles was also fairly hard to figure out his character. He's cast the strong one in the Sonic games, so he could play any of the brute characters from Mass Effect (Grunt, James etc). After looking at various Mass Effect character sstory arcs to see if they share Knuckles' backstory, I decided to cast him as Wrex. This is mainly down to Knuckles and Wrex's roles as guardians (Floating Island and Tuchanka respectively), their initial hostility towards the main character and their transformation from pessimists to optimists. It took a while to include all the armour detail, but I'm close to finishing now. I also added a Pyjak (Chu Chu) for good measure.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Hope you like them so far, I'll make sure to post again as soon as possible.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 10

This week I've commenced with the production of my storyboard animatic and the body rigging of Fishbone. As my main priority was the completion of the storyboard to begin animating, I decided to focus on this first.

I brought my sketchbook into university and scanned every page of the storyboard panels into a computer. I then used StoryboardPro to composite the sequence together. I added some extra panels digitally so as to pad out the story. The next part was adding audio into the storyboard. I'm rather familiar with the software Final Cut Pro, so I used that to edit sound in. A lot of the sounds at the moment are placeholders from Freesound, so I've asked Laura to help me with specific sounds to make them more original. I also plan to include music in my final animation as well, which has been recorded by my good friend Rob Millard.

                

After completing this, I started to make progress on the body rigging. I used a rig that I made for Fishbone last semester to save time, and made slight adjustments to it where appropriate. After skinning him, I started paint weighting the mesh to the correct joints. I haven't ran into any significant problems so far, and hopefully should have it finished by next week.

Here's a photo of the mic I borrowed to record Rob's guitar, will cost me a grand if I break it :/

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 5

In order to give my film a bit more of a visual impact, I decided to give my film a unique title sequence so as to intrigue the viewer. I have never done anything like this for any of my other projects, so I wanted to try it out for this one.

I first started creating the rock that represented my brand identity. I largely followed the same process as for the floating island, but I used cylindrical mapping instead. After exporting the base mesh to Mudbox, I once again applied basic texturing to the mesh to act as markers. I then exported the texture maps to finish off the final details, and applied bump mapping with CrazyBump.

Mesh

Texture Map

Render

I still have a bit more work to do on them to make them look right, but so far I'm making good progress.

University Final Major Project Part 1: Animal Studies

Some scans of drawings that I did over the summer that I hadn't got around to uploading until now. In order to come up with an original character design, I decided to create a hybrid of two animals. After much consideration, I decided to go with a lion an turtle combo, mainly because I liked the idea of a land based mammal being able to swim. 

To begin with, I studied each animal separately to begin with in order to understand their motion and movement. As my character is supposed to be a teenager, I studied lions that hadn't quite grown into adolescence yet. All of these images were drawn from original web-based pictures, but I think I managed to get varied poses for the lions and turtles.

After these studies, I started combining them together to make new animals. I was unsure about what theme to go with, but after designing the one on the top right, I wanted to emphasise the creatures speed. I then decided to reign in the creatures design in the final scan, and came up with the design on the top right.

I then decided to experiment with the final design in a variety of poses. I think I got the balance right between the lion and turtle design. My next phase will be designing the animal to be anthropomorphic. Check back for more news on my fmp later on.

'3 Weeks in October' University Project

Been back at Uni for about a month, now in my final year so I've got TONNES of work to do. For the first 3 weeks back we were required to create three separate animations based on Power of 9, Onomatopoeia and 25fps@staffs.

Power of 9 encompassed the 12 animation principles. I created this in Maya software to freshen myself up for future 3D projects. I didn't want to do anything too complex, so I made a simple sphere and cube shape. I like the rendering on this, I think it keeps with the simple tone of the film.

Onomatopoeia required us to create an animation based on a chosen list of 6 different words. Mine were flap, flutter, rustle, meow, snap and bubble. I tried to create this as a whole animation rather than just separate segments. Was quite fun just animating rather than having to think of a concept first. I'm gonna try working on this in my own time, so hopefully I'll have an updated video soon.

25fps@staffs was promotional material for Staffs Uni BA (Hons) Animation course which I'm currently studying. I worked with Tim Panter from my course on this one. As we both had strengths in illustration, we decided to create three birds that symbolise part of the branding. I drew out the yellow and pink birds and Tim drew out the blue bird. I then edited them together using Adobe After Effects. This is probably my favourite of the three, as it's one of the few animations I've done which I think is finished.

Enjoy the video:

One Hour Challenge No. 21 Taz

Time - 1:00

One Hour Challenge No. 20 Zoidberg

Time - 55 mins

One Hour Challenge No.19 Tails

Time - 1:10

One Hour Challenge No. 18 Squeezy Toy Alien

Time - 50 mins

One Hour Challenge No.17 Ripster (Street Sharks)

Time - 1:00

One Hour Challenge No.16 Dr. Cortex

Time: 1:00

One Hour Challenge No.15 Stitch

Time - 1:05

One Hour Challenge No.14 Snoop Dogg (Caricature)

Inspired by my Snoop Dog Sculpture I did last year.

Time - 1:10

One Hour Challenge No.13 Pluto

One Hour Daily Challenge No.12 Genie (Aladdin)

Time - 1:00

One Hour Daily Challenge No.11 Jigglyrine

Time - 1:00

One Hour Daily Challenge No. 10 Tinkerbell Von Schweetz

Time- 1:15

One Hour Daily Challenge No.9 Indiana Simpson

One Hour Bart Simpson/Indiana Jones morph, struggling to keep his hat on. Inspired by     The Simpsons parody of the chase sequence from Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Thankfully had enough time to provide shading on this one. Purposelly made the whip very long for a more comedic look.

Time: 1:10