CyberSnow

I've been working on this illustration on and off since like September. Took a break for several months actually, but started on it again recently.

It began as a figure study from a photo I found on deviantart.

Then I started trying a few different looks for a robot leg. I was super obsessed with game Transistor at the time... still am.

Started working on her skirt, and decided I wanted the challenge of adding a pattern to the petticoat.

I tried hand drawing the pattern but recently I thought of trying to model the frill in Maya and adding the pattern that way with a texture. It will also give me more options if I want to change it for a more difficult pattern. I've just started the modeling of it here.

In other news:

I got 4th in the design contest I posted about last time. Wooh!

And I'm working currently animating another Kreo Joe short, still pretty goofy, but a lot more fight action movement which is a newer challenge to deal with.

3D Printing Experiments

I recently made friends with someone who built a 3D printer. In exchange for some modeling help, I got to have a couple things printed off. I'd never used stl files before and I had certainly never 3D printed anything before, only read about how it worked.

Here is a circuit board I modeled as a double to see how good of a scale replica I could make based on his measurements.

And here is a case for the circuit board we've started working on. It's pretty simple. Lots of changes need to be made to design still.

 And now for the more fun stuff. For part of my halloween costume I needed a light doornob to go on my costume. So I went ahead and modeled it and had that printed off aswell. We hadn't tried anything so angular before and only did one print without tweaking in between but I was pretty satisfied with how it turned out.

Here is the print in progress.

And hear is the printed doorknob.

Since my last blog post I've been busy with life stuff but I have finished a second book for print for my client that I will hopefully get to see in real form in the next couple months. I've been working on an illustration in my free time I'm hoping to finish. And I've started work on some animated shorts for my client that I hope to post in-progress stuff on later too.

Soon I'll be hand making some christmas gifts(as soon as the materials I need show up in the mail) which I will most likely post about next month.

So probably not many posts this month but hopefully more in January.

Polarbear Rigging

Part 2 of my rigging for Kre-o Get the Diamonds short.

HumanIK requires you model quadrupeds in a human style T pose, which wasn't going to work so well so I didn't try to use it this time.  Instead, I used a free script from Brave Rabbit. It helped with most of the process which sped things up quite a bit.  I had a couple issues with it, mostly to do with scale. It ended up being best to scale up the model to the rig and then scale it back down after the rig was finished rather then use the script's menu scale attribute.

I added my own bit to animate the jaw opening and closing. As well as making a move-able tongue. The jaw just involved added some joints to the rig. The nurbs curve acts as a controller via a simple expression on the rotation.

The tongue was inspired by a brief teaching experience with Andrew Chesworth who now works at Disney. It was a couple of years ago but I remembered he had shown me a rig he made with a tongue that had unconnected joints skinned to it. I can't remember much more about it, but I thought I'd give it a go. I grouped the joints under zeroed out locators and grouped the locators under the jaw controller. That way the joints wouldn't connect to each other, but would move with the jaw and I wouldn't have to mess with the pre-made rig more. The locators act as controllers and leave the tongue and the bottom of the mouth in their default position. And I have the back end of the tongue skinned to the a jaw joint so it always stays rooted to the mouth.


 I used the same process with a wolf as well.

G. I. Joe Kre-O figure Models

I've finished modeling and texturing most of the Kre-O characters for the parody I'm working on called "Get the Diamonds".  Here's a few images of them. The lighting is basic so the materials don't look super great yet.

I'm working on the rigging for  these right now. Its very frustrating, because the toys themselves have very limiting movement in the arms, and trying to translate it to something that can isn't super easy. I've also had quite a few issues with the HumanIK system I've been trying out in Maya. Its super buggy and I may just have to scrap it and start the rigging over.

Pepakura Space Helmet

More Pepakura!

I'm working with someone on a space helmet. I did the modeling from his rough sketches and preped the files for print in pepakura. He will be assembeling them, fiberglassing it, and adding a plasitc sphere dome, before finsihing it. The helmet will be used as a costume piece for film. There is also the possibility that I will be doing special effects for the film aswell. Excitement!!!

 Here you can see the model with a sphere depicting where the plastic will be added.

And here you can see my unfolding job in Pepakura. The helmet is going to be quite large so I had to separate it into many little pieces.

I may have to make it slightly larger to account for the added thickness in the inside that the fiber glass will add. Otherwise its ready for printing and assembling. I'm crossing my fingers that it'll turn out awesome to the max.


In Other News:

Finishing up pages 30 and 31 of La Jolla's Mermaid right now. I started some preliminary clean up on episode 5 (episode 4 is still being edited) of Fang and Talon. I'm doing some minor Logo fixes to finish up the Timber Teaser. And I'm starting storyboards tonight for a new project. Stay tuned~

Pepakura Experiments

So someone told me about this program that takes a 3D model and converts into a paper-craftable object. Apparently people have been using the program to make Iron Man and Halo armor by printing out the pieces on thick cardstock, and then either using them as templates for foam or constructing them and fiberglassing on top of them.

Being mildly insane, and eager to try new things involving 3D modeling, I used the program to print out a simplified version of a skull I'd previously made for something else to test out the process. The program is called Pepakura.

 I did this despite the fact that I don't have any cardstock, or glue, so the construction is really shabby using printer paper and scotch tape. Also, I put it together inside out, which at first I thought would just look nicer, but then towards the end I realized it was a bad idea. This is what it looks like right now. I ran out of tape, and the teeth are so annoying small I might just be done.

Considering all that I feel like it turned out okay... if I used this method to make props or something it would definitely have to be an under-structure and its only really usefull for medium sized objects or details. Any detail smaller than my thumb isn't really happening. But hey, maybe F&T will want some armor made this way or helmets, or some weird magic statue. Who knows.

Texturing an Origami Seahorse

Still working on the Origami Seahorse. I put in some more information to help the edges and help for better motion for rigging. The tail and the fins of course being the emphasis. The rest of him will be pretty static.

 And then I tried out the texture, projecting it on like the photo to see how it fits and what bits need to be added to the texture to make it better.

 

Here you can see the inside of the fins and the tail definitely need some work, but I think it looks pretty good for a start.

Besides the Seahorse here, I've recently redone the illustration section of my website. 

Also I'm halfway done with the illustrations for La Jolla's Mermaid and I've started some work on a new commission that is set to be shown at a convention next month. I can't show any work now, but the product will be out soon enough, and I can tell you it has to do with animating a comic book. Other than that I've started scripting some things but that is far if never going to see the light of day....  well 30 more pages and I might let someone look at it, but I know effects are my strong suit so I don't know. Hah.

Maybe I'll smack down some Valentine's Day cards, but if not, Happy Valentine's day!

Types of Timber

More work being done for the puppet project named Timber! Here are a variety of type examples I tried out for the logo.

And a tiny bit more work on the Seahorse. I've got the form done, now have to add more info information into the model to smooth it out and make it good for rigging.

More Seahorse

 Got a little further with my origami seahorse model. Still, super don't have time for it.

The puppet project I was working on is back on track! The client disappeared for a couple months but has now returned. YAY! I expect to be working on it again within the next week.

Modeling. It feels so good!

Hey, I have an animation project I can actually show! Yay! Super long post.

I've been working on this for a couple weeks. It's a teaser for an animated show that will hopefully be produced! The teaser includes, one character, and one setting, which I am modeling and lighting. I'll also be doing a tiny bit of cloth work later.

I started with doing some character concept sketches, based off a short loose character description.

Then I modeled the character.

The concept for the hair wasn't concrete here, so I went on texturing without it done yet.

The setting was rather easy to construct. A simple stage. The front current is nCloth rigged to locators so that it can be animated open and closed. The grey block was used as a placer for the character.

For lighting, I used a couple ambient lights for fill, and a spotlight. In this case, so I could better move and gauge the spotlight's beam I grouped a polygon cone to it, rather that use the light's built in lightfog. The cones material is transparent and has a glow to it making it function similar to the light fog when smoothed.

I'm working on the hair right now. And then I'll be pretty much done until the character animation gets back to me.

In the meantime, I'm working on page 4 of the La Jolla Mermaid illustrations aswell. And the Art Sale is tonight! Go, buy some of my prints!