Character Brief Design and Updates

I realize I do not have anywhere near as many updates and images for my Maya briefs as I do for Max so here is another quick update on my character design which includes some drawings and screenshots. Further work is still needed on the model and it still needs its eyes and mouth, along with rigging and animating it.

Scrapped idea

Emotion ideas

Screenshots of Progression

Movement Studies aka Mechanical Arm

I have completed modeling my robotic arm for 3ds Max, the final result is slightly different to that which was originally sketched, this was only to make it easier to model and animate for example the original ball in socket joint that made up the wrist joint was changed to a hinge as in the animation the hand does not need to rotate horizontally. The joints were changed as well and shortcuts were taken when modeling them, this was done to meet the deadline, however I believe that this has not affected the quality in any way whatsoever.

New Year Updates!

It's been a month since my previous update, I've been busy doing... well other things. I've started work on the new briefs that include designing an organic character and a robotic arm.

For the character brief we have to create an original character and animate it to a song from the 20's, 30's, 40's or 50's. I have chosen Blue Skies by Frank Sinatra as the song that will play along to my animation. The character itself is called Beasty. It has a simple story to it, where Beasty starts off walking in an open field with blue skies around him, then it begins to get cloudy and the scene darkens, the camera zooms into his eyes, the eyes seem to change texture and as the camera pans out we see that a doll that looks like beasty is lying in a carpet in a childs room.

The mechanical arm is coming along well, more modeling is required as it is missing the hand section and the wires wraped around the forearm. I am still unsure as to what I shall be having the arm do, and idea was to have it crawling around the floor as though it had just got cut off, pushing debris out of the way, or if I can kick my backside into working mode and finish the model I am confient I could composite it over footage of a real arm, blending CG and live action (not going to happen). It will be a way to test my lighting techniques.

But most of all I have to work on more design sketches for both the character and arm. Here's hoping I can give myself a little boost and finish the briefs.