WEEK STARTING - 29th of April, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 5th of May, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Modelling workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/fantastical-creatures-skollcrabb_29.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/media-roles-final-presentation-and.html
THURSDAY - Lip-Sync
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/05/lip-sync-finalised-animation.html
"So now my animation is all done! I really enjoyed this unit all in all, mostly due to my own bias towards 2D animation. Getting back into it after units which were more experimental & foreign to me was like a nice homecoming, and was definitely a more comfortable way for me to work. I don't really have any major gripes with the sessions, they let us get on, and Katherine was very enthusiastic and helpful! The only thing I'd really change is keeping an eye on consistency. I feel like my lip-sync animation was very successful, and it's probably my favourite piece of animation I've done this year!"
SUMMARY
This week is the final week before hand in, and it's all about getting things fully finished.
The lip-sync feedback has been fully implemented, and now it's finished! I'm really happy with how it came out, it hits the sweet spot of feeling like something I'd make on my own, but with the skills I've learnt since coming to university, mostly how to properly apply the principles and animating on twos. Overall, my thoughts on this project are entirely positive! I got to animate in a way I adore, and work in a medium I'm more comfortable in.
My Fantastical Creature is so close to being finished at this point! The model is all there and textured in Substance Painter, I just need to figure out how to get it back into Maya with the textures all intact and applied correctly. I've got a feeling it's either going to be ridiculously easy or ridiculously difficult. But I want to make it look as good in Maya as it does in Substance Painter, and hopefully the correct application will make that possible. Then it's just a turntable and compositing to do and it'll be a wrap for Fantastical Creatures!
Showing posts with label Fantastical Creatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fantastical Creatures. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING #2
This was the first session back after Easter, bringing me back to the Fantastical Creature modelling!
Over Easter, I thought I'd finished my Skollcrabb model, filling all the necessary gaps and fixing anything that didn't work so well. But the key word there is "thought". As it turns out, when I imported my Skollcrabb into another program, it came up with a LIST of errors.
I got Jon to give me feedback on the model, hoping he could point out what was wrong. His main feedback was to do the skull again, since that seemed to be causing me the most problems. The skull had gaps in the mesh, vertices & edges weren't meeting, but my biggest downfall was my polygons. I'd forgotten that these models had to made from 4 sided polygons, but my inclusion of polygons with sides ranging from 3 to 20 was my biggest issue.
Instead of starting the skull again from scratch, Jon advised that I retopologise it. Retopology is the process of creating a new poly-model using another poly-model as reference; it's essentially tracing in 3D. You place 4 points down to create the basis of a polygon and then fill the gaps, adding to your new shape.
So I got started on retopologising the skull! I also plan on doing this for the bottom jaw as well, since that also seems to be a problem area for the model. But I got about halfway through the skull by the end of this session, so I'm definitely coming back to work on it more.
Over Easter, I thought I'd finished my Skollcrabb model, filling all the necessary gaps and fixing anything that didn't work so well. But the key word there is "thought". As it turns out, when I imported my Skollcrabb into another program, it came up with a LIST of errors.
I got Jon to give me feedback on the model, hoping he could point out what was wrong. His main feedback was to do the skull again, since that seemed to be causing me the most problems. The skull had gaps in the mesh, vertices & edges weren't meeting, but my biggest downfall was my polygons. I'd forgotten that these models had to made from 4 sided polygons, but my inclusion of polygons with sides ranging from 3 to 20 was my biggest issue.
Instead of starting the skull again from scratch, Jon advised that I retopologise it. Retopology is the process of creating a new poly-model using another poly-model as reference; it's essentially tracing in 3D. You place 4 points down to create the basis of a polygon and then fill the gaps, adding to your new shape.
So I got started on retopologising the skull! I also plan on doing this for the bottom jaw as well, since that also seems to be a problem area for the model. But I got about halfway through the skull by the end of this session, so I'm definitely coming back to work on it more.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
WEEK 15 SUMMARY
WEEK BEGINNING - 1st of April, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 7th of April, 2019
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/fantastical-creatures-skollcrabb.html
WEDNESDAY - Showreel Premiere Pro Induction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/showreel-premiere-pro-induction.html
"Since this was just a practice with the program, I had some fun with the titles and put in whatever just made me laugh! This little session taught me a couple of new basic techniques that're going to make the actual showreel's production a lot easier. All in all, this was a nice little session that was calm and I enjoyed it!"
THURSDAY - Lip-Sync
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/lip-sync-colours-and-feedback.html
"So now I have this feedback, I'm gonna work on making the head look better and more consistent! Honestly, I'm glad I got more to work on, because I feel like I worked a bit too quickly on this task. That's not to say it's rushed, just that made it in a very short amount of time. But now I have something to do with the extra sessions we have on lip-sync!"
SUMMARY
The work on the Fantastical Creatures project has essentially just been working on the model of Skollcrabb. I'm trying to make it look like an amalgamation of my original design and my maquette, taking my favourite elements from each one. Most notably, I took the legs and eyes from my maquette, and the bottom jaw and claws from my original design. I think from here, I just need to keep working on it and making sure it's finished. I've also got to texture it, but I'm still a ways out from there yet.
For the showreel, I've got most of my clips all together in one folder, so that I can move it all around in one place, instead of constantly having to relocate files that are scattered all over the place. I've also found a nice font to use for my titles, called Back Issues. It's meant to replicate comic book speech bubble text, which fits with the kinds of things I make. These showreels are meant to be personal and reflect our style of work, and given how much influence I have from comic books and cartoons, it seems appropriate.
With the lip-sync task, I'm glad to be getting more to do on it! The feedback I got from Helen has been really great to recieve, since it means I can keep working on making 2D animations like I want to. Plus, I felt like I was going really fast and was worried that I had eventually done something wrong... and I kind of wanted something to be (unintentionally) wrong so I could keep working. But now I have more to work on once I get back after Easter!
Monday, April 1, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING 1
This session was modelling my Skollcrabb creature in Maya.
When starting to model the Skollcrabb, I already had an idea of how it works in a 3D space, thanks to the maquette. But now came the part where it actually had to exist in a 3D digital space.
After our session learning how to start modelling characters last week, I felt like making my Skollcrabb would be a lot easier than if I hadn't had that session. Each part was made up of different poly shapes; the skull, body & eyes were made from spheres that I had edited to resemble the shapes I wanted more, the bottom half of the legs were made of cones, the top half of the legs were made of cylinders, and the bottom jaw.
The most complex shape by far was the skull shell; where other parts of the Skollcrabb didn't require too much modification, the skull needed constant changes and modelling techniques to make it resemble what I wanted.
I also tried closing off as many gaps as I could with the skull, but it's going to prove difficult in later sessions, just due to how I made it. By the end of the session, the Skollcrabb was in pieces:
The only real next step is to just carry on modelling. I still need to add the arms and claws, and then bring it into texturing software to make him colourful and textured!
When starting to model the Skollcrabb, I already had an idea of how it works in a 3D space, thanks to the maquette. But now came the part where it actually had to exist in a 3D digital space.
After our session learning how to start modelling characters last week, I felt like making my Skollcrabb would be a lot easier than if I hadn't had that session. Each part was made up of different poly shapes; the skull, body & eyes were made from spheres that I had edited to resemble the shapes I wanted more, the bottom half of the legs were made of cones, the top half of the legs were made of cylinders, and the bottom jaw.
The most complex shape by far was the skull shell; where other parts of the Skollcrabb didn't require too much modification, the skull needed constant changes and modelling techniques to make it resemble what I wanted.
I also tried closing off as many gaps as I could with the skull, but it's going to prove difficult in later sessions, just due to how I made it. By the end of the session, the Skollcrabb was in pieces:
The only real next step is to just carry on modelling. I still need to add the arms and claws, and then bring it into texturing software to make him colourful and textured!
Sunday, March 31, 2019
WEEK 14 SUMMARY
WEEK BEGINNING - 25th of March, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 31st of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures CG Modelling
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-modelling.html
"This session was a nice introduction to the entire modelling aspect of this unit! And it's a good thing I think that, because we're going to be doing a LOT of it. I'm not looking forward to more of Mudbox though, I wasn't a fan of that. However, my Skollcrabb design doesn't seem like it would involve much sculpting, since it's shell is meant to be smooth without any kind of real divots or cracks. But I'm excited to get started on making Skollcrabb a digital model!"
TUESDAY - Showreel Briefing
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/showreel-briefing.html
"After this session, I feel I've learnt a lot of valuable tips about showreel making than before. It's made me look back on my showreel I made for university interviews before knowing how to properly make one, and seeing how much room there was to improve. From here, my main course of action is getting my elements together. That includes music, clips, etc. We're going to be editing in Premiere Pro, which I'm already well versed in, so there won't be too big a learning curve."
THURSDAY - Lip-Sync Introduction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/lip-sync-introduction.html
"The next step from here is easy: add a mouth. I've got my own pre-defined mouth shapes all ready, I just need to implement them. This session was a nice return to 2D animation for me, and an interesting return to TVPaint! Time away from the program has definitely helped me in coming back to it without any major "grudges"; essentially, forgetting the tricky experiences prior and trying again! Katherine was a huge help, and she seems really professional with TVPaint."
SUMMARY
This week was a nice mix of new things and old things with new techniques!
First off, the Lip-Sync. I'm really loving the lip-sync unit! I realise it's only been one session but I feel more comfortable in this than I have for any other project so far! The return to 2D was, personally, very comforting and it really made me feel like I was in my element again. I definitely feel like I sped right through up to this point, but not in the sense I'm rushing & sacrificing quality, but in that I've been wanting to get back into 2D animation for so long that I really went full on with it.
The Fantastical Creatures work this week was mostly just an introduction to modelling in Maya, so that we can start to consider how we make our creatures. But for me, the biggest development for me in this unit was finishing the Skollcrabb's maquette. It's taught me a LOT in terms of how to work on something that consistently doesn't work; don't force it to work, just start again. It's surprising I hadn't learnt that sooner, but now I know that starting again and failing isn't a bad thing. Eventually, it'll all turn out alright!
Finally there's the showreel. This was more so a briefing on it than anything, so there's not too much to say in terms of a weekly summary of it. I know we're going to be making it in Adobe Premiere Pro; I'm REALLY glad about this. I've been using Premiere Pro since 2016, for personal use as well as my Art Multimedia & Media Studies A-Levels. I feel fairly well versed in both the program and editing in general, so I'm looking forward to working on this showreel.
WEEK ENDING - 31st of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures CG Modelling
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-modelling.html
"This session was a nice introduction to the entire modelling aspect of this unit! And it's a good thing I think that, because we're going to be doing a LOT of it. I'm not looking forward to more of Mudbox though, I wasn't a fan of that. However, my Skollcrabb design doesn't seem like it would involve much sculpting, since it's shell is meant to be smooth without any kind of real divots or cracks. But I'm excited to get started on making Skollcrabb a digital model!"
TUESDAY - Showreel Briefing
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/showreel-briefing.html
"After this session, I feel I've learnt a lot of valuable tips about showreel making than before. It's made me look back on my showreel I made for university interviews before knowing how to properly make one, and seeing how much room there was to improve. From here, my main course of action is getting my elements together. That includes music, clips, etc. We're going to be editing in Premiere Pro, which I'm already well versed in, so there won't be too big a learning curve."
THURSDAY - Lip-Sync Introduction
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/lip-sync-introduction.html
"The next step from here is easy: add a mouth. I've got my own pre-defined mouth shapes all ready, I just need to implement them. This session was a nice return to 2D animation for me, and an interesting return to TVPaint! Time away from the program has definitely helped me in coming back to it without any major "grudges"; essentially, forgetting the tricky experiences prior and trying again! Katherine was a huge help, and she seems really professional with TVPaint."
SUMMARY
This week was a nice mix of new things and old things with new techniques!
First off, the Lip-Sync. I'm really loving the lip-sync unit! I realise it's only been one session but I feel more comfortable in this than I have for any other project so far! The return to 2D was, personally, very comforting and it really made me feel like I was in my element again. I definitely feel like I sped right through up to this point, but not in the sense I'm rushing & sacrificing quality, but in that I've been wanting to get back into 2D animation for so long that I really went full on with it.
The Fantastical Creatures work this week was mostly just an introduction to modelling in Maya, so that we can start to consider how we make our creatures. But for me, the biggest development for me in this unit was finishing the Skollcrabb's maquette. It's taught me a LOT in terms of how to work on something that consistently doesn't work; don't force it to work, just start again. It's surprising I hadn't learnt that sooner, but now I know that starting again and failing isn't a bad thing. Eventually, it'll all turn out alright!
Finally there's the showreel. This was more so a briefing on it than anything, so there's not too much to say in terms of a weekly summary of it. I know we're going to be making it in Adobe Premiere Pro; I'm REALLY glad about this. I've been using Premiere Pro since 2016, for personal use as well as my Art Multimedia & Media Studies A-Levels. I feel fairly well versed in both the program and editing in general, so I'm looking forward to working on this showreel.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - FINISHED MAQUETTE
This post is a quick little post showing my finished Skollcrabb maquette!
I took some time out of sessions to work on my third Skollcrabb iteration, but with more thought, patience and time put into it. And I managed to get there!
This iteration was a lot less fiddly, and involved me changing a few things about the character's design. The biggest one is the placement of the legs. This model would become a lot more fragile if I went with my original vision of having the legs at the side. Now, they're placed on the bottom of the Skollcrabb. I also closed the claws in this maquette, just so if the bottom half wouldn't fall off if the claw was open.
I underestimated just how much Super Sculpey I'd need, since I completely forgot I needed to cover the inside of the shell and body as well as the outside. So that made the process a little longer, but ultimately it's worth it for a proper, correct maquette!
I took some time out of sessions to work on my third Skollcrabb iteration, but with more thought, patience and time put into it. And I managed to get there!
This iteration was a lot less fiddly, and involved me changing a few things about the character's design. The biggest one is the placement of the legs. This model would become a lot more fragile if I went with my original vision of having the legs at the side. Now, they're placed on the bottom of the Skollcrabb. I also closed the claws in this maquette, just so if the bottom half wouldn't fall off if the claw was open.
I underestimated just how much Super Sculpey I'd need, since I completely forgot I needed to cover the inside of the shell and body as well as the outside. So that made the process a little longer, but ultimately it's worth it for a proper, correct maquette!
Monday, March 25, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - MODELLING INTRODUCTION
This session was our first on character modelling in Maya, before we start modelling our own chosen Fantastical Creatures.
The task of what we were going to make was fairly simple, it was just going to be an abstract form of a man made from a cube. From there, we'd go on to make slight changes and use new tools.
We started, as mentioned with a cube. We grabbed the top face and extruded upwards twice, so that we ended up with a cuboid, essentially made from three cubes. We kept extruding, re-scaling and cutting faces until we got a very basic man.
From there, we went on to make him a little less basic. Added features to more resemble actual human anatomy made the model seem less blocky, and more like a stylised character. For my guy, I gave him little stumpy feet, more prominent pectorals and a shaped head.
Once we had our blocky man, our next step was smoothing him. By smoothing the character, Maya made the edges more rounded, and made him higher poly (made up of more polygons). In my case, this resulted in a character who looks somewhat decent from the feet up to the neck, and then the head is just an egg. It looks SO much like an egg after the smoothing process.
Once we had our smoothed out model, we started to use tools I've personally not encounted before; the sculpting tools. The toolset is preinstalled into Maya, and allows the user to manipulate surfaces however they want. Things can be pinched, made jagged, cut into, etc., and the changes will stay there.
We messed about with these tools for a bit, just to get to grips with them. In the end, my smoothed out egg man looked like what I've dubbed as "Human Jar Jar Binks", due to it's large billed mouth and eye stalks.
Our final experimentation with sculpting was in a program called Mudbox, another Autodesk package. It's specifically made for sculpting and modelling, with no real functionality outside of that. I found the program less user friendly, and ultimately a lot more tricky to use. I wanted to try and recreate elements of the character Thanos' design, but parts of the model kept getting dragged out and warping where I didn't want them to.
This session was a nice introduction to the entire modelling aspect of this unit! And it's a good thing I think that, because we're going to be doing a LOT of it. I'm not looking forward to more of Mudbox though, I wasn't a fan of that. However, my Skollcrabb design doesn't seem like it would involve much sculpting, since it's shell is meant to be smooth without any kind of real divots or cracks. But I'm excited to get started on making Skollcrabb a digital model!
The task of what we were going to make was fairly simple, it was just going to be an abstract form of a man made from a cube. From there, we'd go on to make slight changes and use new tools.
We started, as mentioned with a cube. We grabbed the top face and extruded upwards twice, so that we ended up with a cuboid, essentially made from three cubes. We kept extruding, re-scaling and cutting faces until we got a very basic man.
From there, we went on to make him a little less basic. Added features to more resemble actual human anatomy made the model seem less blocky, and more like a stylised character. For my guy, I gave him little stumpy feet, more prominent pectorals and a shaped head.
Once we had our blocky man, our next step was smoothing him. By smoothing the character, Maya made the edges more rounded, and made him higher poly (made up of more polygons). In my case, this resulted in a character who looks somewhat decent from the feet up to the neck, and then the head is just an egg. It looks SO much like an egg after the smoothing process.
Once we had our smoothed out model, we started to use tools I've personally not encounted before; the sculpting tools. The toolset is preinstalled into Maya, and allows the user to manipulate surfaces however they want. Things can be pinched, made jagged, cut into, etc., and the changes will stay there.
We messed about with these tools for a bit, just to get to grips with them. In the end, my smoothed out egg man looked like what I've dubbed as "Human Jar Jar Binks", due to it's large billed mouth and eye stalks.
Our final experimentation with sculpting was in a program called Mudbox, another Autodesk package. It's specifically made for sculpting and modelling, with no real functionality outside of that. I found the program less user friendly, and ultimately a lot more tricky to use. I wanted to try and recreate elements of the character Thanos' design, but parts of the model kept getting dragged out and warping where I didn't want them to.
(My Thanos (left) facing Sam's Sonic (right))
This session was a nice introduction to the entire modelling aspect of this unit! And it's a good thing I think that, because we're going to be doing a LOT of it. I'm not looking forward to more of Mudbox though, I wasn't a fan of that. However, my Skollcrabb design doesn't seem like it would involve much sculpting, since it's shell is meant to be smooth without any kind of real divots or cracks. But I'm excited to get started on making Skollcrabb a digital model!
Sunday, March 24, 2019
WEEK 13 SUMMARY
WEEK BEGINNING - 18th of March, 2019
WEEK ENDING - 24th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Brief
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-briefing.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Mini-Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-more-information.html
THURSDAY - Maquette Workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-maquette-workshop.html
"I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like."
SUMMARY
This week was our introduction to our newest unit, named "Fantastical Creatures". It seems like a really nice change from our last few projects, which have limited creativity a little bit in that we can't really make things our own outside of the movements. But everything about these characters are going to come from us, and that's really exciting to me! I'm a big fan of my creature, the Skollcrabb. It feels like it fits my style really well, but is also outlandish enough to be different from other things I make! It's definitely something I want to keep using both inside and outside of university! Overall, excited for more with the Fantastical Creatures!
WEEK ENDING - 24th of March, 2019
MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Brief
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-briefing.html
TUESDAY - Media Roles Mini-Presentation
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/media-roles-more-information.html
THURSDAY - Maquette Workshop
Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/fantastical-creatures-maquette-workshop.html
"I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like."
SUMMARY
This week was our introduction to our newest unit, named "Fantastical Creatures". It seems like a really nice change from our last few projects, which have limited creativity a little bit in that we can't really make things our own outside of the movements. But everything about these characters are going to come from us, and that's really exciting to me! I'm a big fan of my creature, the Skollcrabb. It feels like it fits my style really well, but is also outlandish enough to be different from other things I make! It's definitely something I want to keep using both inside and outside of university! Overall, excited for more with the Fantastical Creatures!
Thursday, March 21, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - MAQUETTE WORKSHOP
In this session, we started creating maquettes of our chosen Fantastical Creature (as seen in this post). We would be making them out of wire, tinfoil and a material called Super Sculpey. Super Sculpey is an industry standard material, used by professional studios to create their character models.
We were given a block of wood with 6 holes in it, the holes intended to act as a holder for pegs which the model would be supported by; presumably from the legs / feet. We were then told what the proper order was for constructing the maquette:
I won't lie, I REALLY struggled making my Skollcrabb into a tangible maquette in this session. The bulk of the Skollcrabb is it's skull shell, which is essentially a half of a sphere. THAT was the biggest issue with modelling. Making the half-sphere wasn't something I accomplished this session, despite trying again from scratch.
I feel like I could've gotten there in this session had their been enough supplies to go around the entire class. Constantly there were moments where I'd turn around to get wire cutters or masking tape only to realise they were gone. Supplies were low, so people kept taking them from other groups. This meant some groups progressed faster than others because they kept taking the tools.
This meant me and my group progressed slower, since we didn't have immediate access to what we needed. This, in correlation, meant I had less chance to use a trial-and-error approach to get my maquette looking good.
At the end of the session, my maquette looked pretty... miserable.
I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like.
We were given a block of wood with 6 holes in it, the holes intended to act as a holder for pegs which the model would be supported by; presumably from the legs / feet. We were then told what the proper order was for constructing the maquette:
- Create the base of the character with wire
- Flesh out the design with tin foil
- Overlay with Super Sculpey
I won't lie, I REALLY struggled making my Skollcrabb into a tangible maquette in this session. The bulk of the Skollcrabb is it's skull shell, which is essentially a half of a sphere. THAT was the biggest issue with modelling. Making the half-sphere wasn't something I accomplished this session, despite trying again from scratch.
I feel like I could've gotten there in this session had their been enough supplies to go around the entire class. Constantly there were moments where I'd turn around to get wire cutters or masking tape only to realise they were gone. Supplies were low, so people kept taking them from other groups. This meant some groups progressed faster than others because they kept taking the tools.
This meant me and my group progressed slower, since we didn't have immediate access to what we needed. This, in correlation, meant I had less chance to use a trial-and-error approach to get my maquette looking good.
At the end of the session, my maquette looked pretty... miserable.
(A discarded wireframe)
(Wireframe iteration 2 with tinfoil)
(Iteration 2 with some Super Sculpey)
I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB (with influences and lore)
In this post, I'm going to be going over my chosen creature design, which I have dubbed the Skollcrabb. I'll also go over it's fictional lore & backstory, as well as what inspired the creature from reality and fiction.
BIOGRAPHY
Species name: Skollcrabb
Subphylum: Crustacean
Average life expectancy: 150-200 years
Habitat: Deep ocean trenches
Diet: Herbivore (eats mostly seaweed)
Characteristics: Purple exoskeleton with black legs & "cuffs", naturally formed shell resembling a human skull
Gender differences: Males have round heads and consistently shaped shell teeth, females have pointed heads with larger shell fangs
Life-cycle: Start as small shrimp-like creatures, always born two at a time. Babies are carried around by the father, who supports them in his shell's eye sockets. Baby life usually lasts about 6 months. Babies are recognised as adults once their eye stalks retract and their shell develops. Adult life usually lasts about 125 years. As they approach old age, their shell's teeth start turning gold, large seaweed beards form, and their legs and shell's bottom jaw grow out, creating a much taller stature. Older Skollcrabbs usually keep their claws inside their shells. Elderly life usually lasts 50 years.
Predators: Unknown
Evolutionary advantages: Skull shells designed to be retracted into, with a look warding off potential predators into thinking a bigger fish is around.
INFLUENCES
REAL CREATURES
Two main creatures influenced the Skollcrabb; the hermit crab and the coconut crab.
Hermit crabs are decapod crustaceans with the trait of adopting shells of their own to live in by, effectively, stealing it. Shells become more in demand as the crabs grow, and fights can occur between hermit crabs who want the same shell. The strong correlation between crab and shell was my main draw from the hermit crab, especially given how much they mean to them.
The coconut crab was my other main source of inspiration, mostly for the colour scheme and for the Skollcrabb's elderly form. Coconut crabs are the largest arthropods on the planet, measuring up to 1 meter from leg to leg. They're also known as robber crabs, often known to steal objects from humans living near coasts of Australia. The huge size is what inspired the much taller stature of the elderly Skollcrabb, and it's black, purple and red colour scheme was the main inspiration for the Skollcrabb's "real" colours.
FICTIONAL
Their were a few fictional creatures that inspired the Skollcrabb, most notably Tamatoa from 2016's Moana and some of the crab inspired Pokemon from the Pokemon series.
Tamatoa is a giant coconut crab from Disney's 2016 animated film Moana. He acts as a deutagonist, acting as a mini-boss of sorts to get Maui's magical fish hook back. Tamatoa is a fan of gold and shiny objects (evidenced by his collection on his shell, as well as a David Bowie inspired song about it.), referencing the hoarder-like qualities the real coconut crab has. This colour scheme is more close to what inspired the Skollcrabb's colours
Some Pokemon from the Pokemon video game series also inspired the Skollcrabbs. Most notable are (from left to right, top to bottom) Dwebble, Crustle, Paras and Parasect. They all feature very bug-eyed with very large, characterised shells (bar Paras). The claws and legs for the Skollcrabb were inspired by these pokemon as well, having quite thin legs with VERY large claws, which are somewhat rounded.
BIOGRAPHY
Species name: Skollcrabb
Subphylum: Crustacean
Average life expectancy: 150-200 years
Habitat: Deep ocean trenches
Diet: Herbivore (eats mostly seaweed)
Characteristics: Purple exoskeleton with black legs & "cuffs", naturally formed shell resembling a human skull
Gender differences: Males have round heads and consistently shaped shell teeth, females have pointed heads with larger shell fangs
Life-cycle: Start as small shrimp-like creatures, always born two at a time. Babies are carried around by the father, who supports them in his shell's eye sockets. Baby life usually lasts about 6 months. Babies are recognised as adults once their eye stalks retract and their shell develops. Adult life usually lasts about 125 years. As they approach old age, their shell's teeth start turning gold, large seaweed beards form, and their legs and shell's bottom jaw grow out, creating a much taller stature. Older Skollcrabbs usually keep their claws inside their shells. Elderly life usually lasts 50 years.
Predators: Unknown
Evolutionary advantages: Skull shells designed to be retracted into, with a look warding off potential predators into thinking a bigger fish is around.
INFLUENCES
REAL CREATURES
Two main creatures influenced the Skollcrabb; the hermit crab and the coconut crab.
Hermit crabs are decapod crustaceans with the trait of adopting shells of their own to live in by, effectively, stealing it. Shells become more in demand as the crabs grow, and fights can occur between hermit crabs who want the same shell. The strong correlation between crab and shell was my main draw from the hermit crab, especially given how much they mean to them.
The coconut crab was my other main source of inspiration, mostly for the colour scheme and for the Skollcrabb's elderly form. Coconut crabs are the largest arthropods on the planet, measuring up to 1 meter from leg to leg. They're also known as robber crabs, often known to steal objects from humans living near coasts of Australia. The huge size is what inspired the much taller stature of the elderly Skollcrabb, and it's black, purple and red colour scheme was the main inspiration for the Skollcrabb's "real" colours.
FICTIONAL
Their were a few fictional creatures that inspired the Skollcrabb, most notably Tamatoa from 2016's Moana and some of the crab inspired Pokemon from the Pokemon series.
Tamatoa is a giant coconut crab from Disney's 2016 animated film Moana. He acts as a deutagonist, acting as a mini-boss of sorts to get Maui's magical fish hook back. Tamatoa is a fan of gold and shiny objects (evidenced by his collection on his shell, as well as a David Bowie inspired song about it.), referencing the hoarder-like qualities the real coconut crab has. This colour scheme is more close to what inspired the Skollcrabb's colours
Some Pokemon from the Pokemon video game series also inspired the Skollcrabbs. Most notable are (from left to right, top to bottom) Dwebble, Crustle, Paras and Parasect. They all feature very bug-eyed with very large, characterised shells (bar Paras). The claws and legs for the Skollcrabb were inspired by these pokemon as well, having quite thin legs with VERY large claws, which are somewhat rounded.
Monday, March 18, 2019
FANTASTICAL CREATURES - BRIEFING
This session introduced us to our newest character design unit, looking at our own Fantastical Creatures.
This task is to teach us how to create our own characters and then create a 3D version of it, either as a puppet or a CG model; I will be going with the latter.
Our list of deliverables this time includes:
Since I'm working in CG (specifically in Maya), the list of things we'll be doing for the process of designing our creatures is:
This unit will be 5 weeks of term time (+3 weeks of holiday time), of which 4 of those weeks will be CG specific. There will be taught sessions, as well as independent work and research into the animal form, design iterations and process.
After getting all this down, our tables of 4 got a large sheet of paper, and we got to create as many creatures as we wanted! Using different materials and colours was encouraged, so I tried to use as much as felt necessary.
I tried making my creatures look like they'd fit in with my style, but also tried venturing out with the weird creatures idea. I haven't designed creatures in quite a few years, so it was a fun time going back to it!
After we all finished our creatures, we went around the room, putting hearts on which creature one person designed we liked the most. When I got back, I found two with an equal amount of likes: Steveñ the Screaming Mushroom Mutant and Skollcrabbe. And I've got to say, I certainly really like Skollcrabbe too! Steveñ, as funny a design as it is, just doesn't feel like a good fit for this task. I think I'm going to go with Skollcrabbe going forward with this task.
Next session, we're moving on to sculpting our creature out of wire and Super Sculpey, which sounds like it could be really cool! This session, in all, was really fun! It was nice to get back to 2D drawing and making whatever characters we wanted.
This task is to teach us how to create our own characters and then create a 3D version of it, either as a puppet or a CG model; I will be going with the latter.
Our list of deliverables this time includes:
- Turntable - a clip of our creature turning around
- Composited photos - 3 edited photos of our creatures incorporated into provided backgrounds
- Cast sheet - a cast sheet of creatures with a block background
Since I'm working in CG (specifically in Maya), the list of things we'll be doing for the process of designing our creatures is:
- Modelling
- Basic Sculpting
- Retopologizing
- UVs
- Texturing
- Rendering
- Compositing
This unit will be 5 weeks of term time (+3 weeks of holiday time), of which 4 of those weeks will be CG specific. There will be taught sessions, as well as independent work and research into the animal form, design iterations and process.
After getting all this down, our tables of 4 got a large sheet of paper, and we got to create as many creatures as we wanted! Using different materials and colours was encouraged, so I tried to use as much as felt necessary.
(My creatures (from top left clockwise), Johnathon, Camelelelelol, Skollcrabbe, Stabcat, Buzzcut, Lil' Boi, Steveñ, Bjord and DigDog.)
I tried making my creatures look like they'd fit in with my style, but also tried venturing out with the weird creatures idea. I haven't designed creatures in quite a few years, so it was a fun time going back to it!
After we all finished our creatures, we went around the room, putting hearts on which creature one person designed we liked the most. When I got back, I found two with an equal amount of likes: Steveñ the Screaming Mushroom Mutant and Skollcrabbe. And I've got to say, I certainly really like Skollcrabbe too! Steveñ, as funny a design as it is, just doesn't feel like a good fit for this task. I think I'm going to go with Skollcrabbe going forward with this task.
Next session, we're moving on to sculpting our creature out of wire and Super Sculpey, which sounds like it could be really cool! This session, in all, was really fun! It was nice to get back to 2D drawing and making whatever characters we wanted.
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