Chelsea Butler

As we start to convert to online learning, our first lesson involved us to create key poses for our character, Moom. The aim is for him to reach his end goal, the button, but we had specific emotions that we needed to evoke within his face and body language, such as nervousness.

For my Premise project, I decided to create an initial storyboard to help me visualise how the animation could potentially unfold. My main focus in this storyboard is to keep the camera close to the character’s faces to evoke a lot of emotion through their expressions and body language. The beginning of the storyboard shows the male character, René, seeing flashbacks of himself and his love, Linette, spending time together, so I need to now consider how I will portray these memories through either editing or the actual animation. Another thing that I need to consider is how to texture the 3D model for Linette when she becomes a ghost. The idea is that she will be slightly transparent but not to the point where she will be hard to distinguish. I am now currently considering how I can push the characters designs even further and also incorporate the Art Nouveau style in to the final animation.

The palm and the main four fingers are now modeled for Jet Pack Jones. Admittedly it was a little tedious trying to determine the right size for the fingers to be, but it was a lot of fun to experience and I'm glad it turned out the way it did. Now, on to modelling the thumb. 

I have now created the boots for Jet Pack Jones. I'm pleased that I finished this tutorial in the amount of time that I did, I can feel myself getting a bit quicker now, but I still have a ways to go before I become completely comfortable with Maya. 

For this life drawing session, I decided to work on my drawing tablet so that I could practise working digitally. I want to push myself further next time and perhaps try and add some colour in the drawings.

For our in class animation, I have now blocked in some head positions so that the character can appear more expressive. I now plan to advance this by making the blocked poses into a fluid animation.

I have now begun modelling the lower half of the body for Jet Pack Jones which include the legs and pelvis. Admittedly, it was a little difficult to begin with, but I managed to complete the tutorial. However, I am a little worried that I'm not completing these tutorials quick enough as it takes me a little while to fully understand certain tools and techniques with Maya. Hopefully with more practise, I will start to see an improvement. 

For this portion of the face animation, I have added in eyebrow movement and expressions. It was a bit difficult deciding on what emotion to incorporate, but I am excited to take this further with some head movement.