Cerys Ford Computer animation arts

While it may have been risky to start a new project for Minor, I’m so glad I did. I think this project turned out much better than anything I would have created taking my premise into minor. I have learnt a lot from this project, especially for character modelling. While I feel that this is some of my best work, I still would have liked to have achieved more for it than what I was able to. Originally, I wanted to get both characters modelled for this deadline, but I had to make the decision to focus on getting one model done for this deadline as I simply didn’t have the time to get both done. My time management skills were good at the beginning of the project, and I felt I was keeping on track to get everything finished, but that fell apart over the break. I think I may have been a bit over ambitious from the start, but changing what I’m doing for Major has helped to take some of that pressure away, and made my final goal for major more realistically achievable. For Major, I

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mdpxcifhzEVu41QHwu0Ia5mUFHHJpCwH/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=107239671984932830909&rtpof=true&sd=true Click this link to access the Art of

 Here is the completed Witch model. I'm quite happy with the results, but I should of started her sooner so I would have had more time to make her even better. I learnt a lot throughout the process, especially about different modelling and sculpting techniques. 

 Finally it was time to model the Witch hat. I started out with a cube which I shaped into a rough circle, sizing it to fit the base of the hat and getting rid of the middle faces. I then extruded it upwards, once again shaping it to fit the shape of the hat. I then reconnected the faces at the tip, which was a lot harder than I was expecting, and the geometry is a bit odd but it was the only way I could figure out how to connect everything, and I think it came out looking ok in the end. Once I'd got the main shape of the hat, I moved on to the brim. I took the bottom edge of the hat and extruded outwards to create it, moving the vertices to create the floppy shape. Finally I extruded down and in to add volume, adding edge loops in to sharpen edges around the brim and around the band shape. Something went wrong when I extruded the brim, as it created some extra geometry inside the hat that messed up the rest of the geometry in that area, and I didn't notice until I'd added

 I decided to tackle the hair next. Before anything I did a little research into different hair modelling methods, eventually going off of this stylised character tutorial off gnomon which Vee sent me: https://uca-thegnomonworkshop-com.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/tutorials/modeling-a-stylized-character-for-games . I had to modify the techniques slightly as I currently don't have access to Zbrush. I started out by modelling a very basic base mesh in Maya which I would then sculpt in Mudbox. This process was quite fun and challenging, I had to figure out how to add the volume of the hair that's in the orthographs without her looking silly, which I think I was able to pull off in the end. I decided that the Witch wouldn't remove her hat at any point, so the hair didn't need to look good on the top. Once I'd modelled the rough base mesh, I took it into Mudbox to refine the hair clumps. It took a few tries to figure out the best technique for getting it to look how I wanted.

 It was finally time to model the Witch's head. I used the same method I used for the Werewolf's head, using a base mesh and then quad drawing on top to build up the geometry. I started out with the eye, then worked down the front of the face to form the nose and lips, then worked round to the back of the head. This was a relatively smooth process, although I had a issue of too much geometry coming down from the lips and chin into the neck, so I had to work quite hard to figure out how to minimise that without affecting the shape. There's also a bit of rippiling on the side of the face near the corner of the eye, that I just can't get rid of for some reason. I needed to move on so I'm going to add the hair and figure out how to get rid of it after if it's even still visible. It's not too noticable, but there are specific angles were you can see it.

 The hands and the arms were next. These took a lot longer than I was expecting, and were a lot harder than I was expecting too. at first I tried to quad draw over the base mesh hands, but that was turning out very messy so I went back to Jet Pack Jones again and followed the hand tutorial. They look OK, but I'm not fullt satisfied with how they came out. For the lower arm, I extruded up from the hand the added extra edge loops to create the shape.

 I moved on to the boots next. I quickly realised that the walking boot style boots I had drawn with her design would be too time consuming for me to model, and I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to go about modelling the level of detail I wanted. So, I decided to do ankle wellie boots instead, which were slightly easier to model but still fit the Witch's character of living in the woods. I followed the JPJ boots tutorial, adding detail were it's needed.

Continuing with the Witch modelling, the next step was the Jeans and belt. I went back and looked at the Legs and Pelvis Jet pack jones tutorial to model the jeans. The process was pretty smooth, but I took longer than I'd have liked to on them. One of my areas for improvement will definetly be to try and get quicker at modelling. Next was the belt. Again I used the JPJ tutorial to help me figure out the basic shape, but I wanted my belt to be more detailed than the one in the tutorial, so I deleted a set of faces and stretched the resulting ends to created the overlapped belt look. For the buckle, I used a plane to create the shape of the buckle then extruded to create the thickness. Finally, I created the buckle prong and the belt loops. Even though it was fairly simple to do, I'm really happy with the final result.

 I started the witch model with the shirt and the sweater vest. I started out with a hollowed out cylinder which I shaped to be the bottom of the sweater vest, then kept extruding upwards and shaping as I went, eventually shaping the arm holes when I got to that point. Once I'd got the basic shape I then used the relax geometry tool to smooth out the uneven edges. Once I had the main shape of the sweater vest, I extruded the edges to create the ridge. I wanted to model the ridges from my concept, but I decided to add them in the textures instead, as they'd be difficult to model and I can make them look better through textures. Next were the sleeves of the shirt under the sweater vest. I extruded from the arm holes of the sweater vest, then kept extruding and shaping to form the sleeve, using the orthographs and the base meshes arm as a guide. Next I modelled the collar of the shirt. Instead of extruding from the neck of the sweater vest I decided it would look better to have th

 Following on from the witch orthographs, I modified the base mesh I'm using to fit the proportions of the Witch. These modifications were a lot less extreme and more subtle than the ones I did for the Werewolf, as the Witch already had a somewhat similar body type to the base mesh I'm using. I made her legs, arms and torso slightly shorter, and I used the soft select tool to give her a curvier appearance. A lot of the more dramatic alterations were done to her face. The base mesh face is more realistic than what I've been going for, so I had to make her eyes larger and more shaped, slightly changed the shape of her nose, made her mouth slightly wider, made her whole head slightly narrower and made her jaw more defined. I didn't make her face 100% match the orthographs as I didn't think things like the size of her eyes translated well into 3D, so I found a middle ground which I think looks more stylised but not creepy. Base mesh used: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models

 After a few technical difficulties with mudbox, I decided to take a break from modelling the Werewolf and work on the Witch instead. Before I could model her I needed to create some orthogrpahs of her to properly model her in maya. I decided to do two versions of the orthographs- one that's bald so I could get her face and head shape, then one with her hair and hat. I also decided not to include her glasses for now, as they would obstruct her face too much and I might be able to model them without orthographs. Her front facing ortho was fairly simple to create, using the previous concept sketches of her for reference, but I really struggled when it came to her shoes and her side facing ortho. I had to look up quite a few references for both and had multiple attempts for both, and they still aren't perfect. They're good enough to use as guidlines for modelling though. This tells me that I need to practice drawing side angles and shoes more.

 Once I'd got the Werewolf head to a decent stage, I decided to work on the body for a bit. To save a bit of time, I used a female base mesh from sketchfab (https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/female-base-mesh-b6389ae82f044dbe9945c4dad2cd72ae) Which I modified to my Werewolves more exaggerated anatomy. I also heavily modified the feet to something I could use easier than the original feet. The original base mesh before modifications: When I get to modelling the witch, I'll use the same base mesh with a few modifications to keep the styles of each character consistent. Base mesh used: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/female-base-mesh-b6389ae82f044dbe9945c4dad2cd72ae

The next step of modelling the head was getting the jaw in and modelling the ear. I started out by adding the basic shape of the geometry for both the ear and the jaw, using the orthographs to figure out how big the ears should be. I built up the bottom part of the ear first, then extended it upwards. Once I'd figured out how big the basic shape and the base of the ear should be, I then went and created the jaw by extruding the first faces I'd created, and built in the cheek. To get the shape of the ear, I added edge loops to the large faces that I had extruded. Once I'd done that, I had to figure out the top of the ear, which was really difficult to figure out. At first I filled the hole at the top and tried to add in edges to make quad faces, but I wasn't able to get all quads and I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted it to, so I went back a few steps and built it up face by face to get the shape I wanted. The next steps for the head will be to take it into m

 My original plan for major was to do the full animation from my storyboards, which would involve complex rigs, a lot of lip syncing for the witch, Coming up with a full script, etc. I came to the realisation that I simply don't have the time, skills or resources to complete such a large project in the scope of the Major project, so I've changed my plans for what I'm going to do for Major to something more achievable.  I'm going to focus on the environment and the worldbuilding more for major, as well as texturing my characters and more simplistic rigs for them. My plan at the moment is to have a simpler animation showing off the environment and character modelling, which will also suit the areas of industry I want to go into when I graduate.

After doing the reworks to the werewolfs design, I went back to modelling her head. I'm still using the original orthographs because thy're close enough to how her new head look that I can still use them as guidelines. After getting the eye to look right, I moved on to the muzzle. I formed the top of her head and her cheek first so that the muzzle would flow into the shapes of the forehead and cheek. For her nose, at first I tried to have just the general shape and paint the nostrils on, but I realised for the animation I'd need actual geometry to animate some of her expressions, so I modelled it fully.  I found the nose extremely difficult to model, especially figuring out how the mesh should flow from the inside of the nostril back out and into the lip.

 After a few discussions with and some feedback from my tutors, I realised that the current design for my werewolf, specifically the orthographs, weren't what I wanted my Werewolf to look like, and they look more like a person in a suit than a Werewolf. So I went back to my inspiration sources and did some reworking of her design, starting out with her basic anatomy. I always wanted her to be thin, long and lanky so I focused on elongating pretty much every aspect of her anatomy, and making her fur less bulky. I made sure to have her ankles be a lot more raised, as that helps the design seem less like a suit. These are much more like what I originally envisioned for her. Next I decided to try out a more dynamic pose to get a better understanding of how her anatomy works, so I tried a running pose. It's a bit stiff but it helped me to figure out how she would move. I also tried to figure out what her hands should look like, here I tried bigger, more wolf like hands that are comm

 At first I started modelling the head using the cube method, starting out with a simple cube and shaping it to form the base of the head, then going in and adding the detail. I had got to this point of a simple base for the head when Vee showed me a different method, which involved taking a base mesh, in this case a fox skull, and using the quad draw tool to build up the model face by face. I much preferred doing it this way as I was able to wrap my head around the geometry a lot better, especially around the eye as I really struggle to get the edge loops around the eye right in the previous method.