Acting Reference

It was clear very soon, that acting reference was key for creating Vaiva’s performance. So many expression nuances were hard to capture solely in storyboards or pre-vizes. The images represent stills of the reference footage.

 

With the help of time code and the grid over the footage, I’m comfortable to attempt constructing accurately timed and well spaced performance.

Vaiva's Controls Test Animation

This is an exercise of Vaiva’s body animation controls. The animated sequence has only some indication of her character, however I was more concerned with learning the workings of her rig and warming up.

 

 After this test I see that some controls work very closely together, so it means when using a particular handle it would only work correctly if couple of others go with it, for example: her feet controls work together with the middle ring of the spine, which is responsible for the skirt and the avoiding of leg/skirt geometry clashes.
  Also, great consideration should be taken to create organic and feminine animation instead of something closer to Ivan the Bird – clunky robotic animation :D However I have great belief in acting reference I am filming at the moment (with some struggle taken to borrow a camera from Universities resources for photography students). Lets see how it will work :]

Wrap up and Result of D Commission

3 weeks ago I have been asked by Iceage Musics Limited company to create ident animation.  It was a kind of one-man-band type of commitment s o I was responsible to coming up with the presentation idea after they gave me guidelines what they want to see in it ( re characters and environment) , designing, producing, animating and making a soundtrack.

The time was also quite short, only 4 days for everything. So it was least 14 hours a day.. But was worth it! :]

 The project was enjoyable and the pay  too . I totally enjoyed being the director designer and animator of a professional assignment and I could totally see myself doing something similar in the future :]

Vaiva's First Expressions

These are Vaiva’s first expressions , having just finished rigging. :]

 

To create suitable rig for Vaiva it was essential to think about her performance a lot. This guided me through rigging process. It was very clear what type of expressions she’d need most for example, snarly lips, squinty eyes. On the other hand, a very gentle and motherly smile too.

 

 It has been nearly 3 weeks of rigging Vaiva. Most of the time spent preparing the character for lip-synch and facial animation. 

I am in currently researching animation techniques (Animator’s survival Kit of course) , and references for animation . Also, filming action for animation reference. Soon to come will be a test walk cycle animation.

"D" Comission : Set design and shot Set-ups

During the second day of the production for 'D' Event's Ident I've worked out set design and staging.

 

  

  

and today, started animating some of the characters, here is a snipet of clown scene:

In theory tomorrow should be the last day and by the end of it I should have a rendered and edited roughly 10 second long sequence . Hope that will happen :]

Laume's Character Rig

For a good week I was busy with creating rig for Laume. She has a fairly standart character body rig. The only exception being her chicken-like legs: her toes have more functionality than a real human's leg:  behaving more like fingers.

Her face is the complicated part. It has now over 60 controls for tongue, eyebrows, cheeks, lips, squinting ande else. She now can  blink, her mouth is also in place and working but the daunting task of rigging  hasn't finished yet, for I have still to make blend shapes for lipsynch and general expressiveness.

Unfortunately while rigging, something must've broken links of my textures and because I have combined my body parts it will ask for me to do a carefull face by face selection to reaply textures again , so I wasn't able to upload nice renders of her posed and texture. 




 

Branding Commission for "D" Event: Creating an Ident

my easter holidays haven't yet really started as I am delivering a commission, but fingers crossed, it will go fine and next week I'll be rambling in Wales! (:]

 I can share some bits of this project.

Aim of the event:
 The main objectives are to create a branded, monthly entertainment event . The events will consist of performers such as magicians and dancers opening the nights, allowing a diverse experience. However all of the events will be focusing on rock and metal music. Elements such as lasers, lighting, smoke will accompany the visual show.

They are asking to design, animate and work out the soundtrack of the ident.

For the sequence to be produced in such a short time and budget the aim was to come up with most economic idea of representing the event and delivering their intentions too.

Essentially I suggested the client a 8-12 seconds long intro sequence to be a sort of flip-book/ pop-up illustration style animation. The characters would be essentially animated in a constricted way , in a sort of South park style (for example,  magician only waves his magic wand ) . This approach asks for a good accompanying soundtrack. I’m also aiming to include some visual effects ( dynamics effects for card scattering to particles, laser show, illusion of flipping book).

Today i've started and come up with  needed characters with their essential props:

 So the plan is to keep the project in a frame of 4 days (3 days to go)  Tomorrow  I'd be work out set design, possibly some props and get characters all rigged for the animating. And if there's any time left, put together a rough soundtrack, which would help alot when animating the ident.

March's Sketchbook

I am developing shaders at the moment.

These are examples of some texturing tweaking of the clothing and sub surface scattering shader for Vaiva’s face.

Vaivas Body Colour Map

A little nuance.. I ran out of space for photos on blogger, so from now on I'm joinin photo bucket.
Vaiva's body colour is almost done. I'm thinking to revisit the top and match it to skirt's colour because it doesn't seem to blend that well now.



In couple of next days I'll be developing surface shaders .

Vaiva's Texturing Progress: The Head

Friday I have started texturing Vaiva. The head was challenging in that every storke was either working or not. Head's texturing so far is purely a colour map, meaning surface shaders are not yet created. It is a common aproach I take, after work placement in picassopictures, where purely colour map had to look as if it had many layering to it. So  I move  to creating surface shaders only after thecolour pass looks as good as possible.

Original Concept:

What I found extremely helpful was James Gorney's face colour zone scheme:

 I've looked at some eye shading tutorials. It went through a detailed process in photoshop and maya. 

The rest of the body as well as surface shaders ,  I suppose,  will come along over next week :]

Details and Finessing of Vaiva's Model

Monday onwards, I was defining the character to its details. I have added amber chest, interior of the mouth, chicken feather part of the dress.

I have resolved body parts which needed great detail: chicken like feets, hair and face. 

In Mudbox I've created high rez meshes and imported those back to maya to extract normal maps.

Not without a reason many sculptors noted that essential mesh doesn't take too Long to build up, but the fine detail takes 10 times longer.But modelling, I believe is now finished and I'll  work now on texturing (!)

My First Fashion Shoot in i-D Magazine’s Style: Doppel Identities

The inspiration for aesthetics came from magazine i-D, analysis of which was delivered here. The theme for fashion shoot  I chose was double identities. Or if in more particular, the glamour identity pulled over. The beauty and the fake of it. The manikin qualities overwrighting  organity.   

 

 

 

 

 I was responsible for art direction, photographing and postproduction . The mask is also made from before.

One soft light and white colorama was mainly used . Images were aestheticaly postproduced for atmospherical and mood change. 

It was an amazing experience to be a hptographer to find the aesthetics, find the  model, the props etc. By the end of the shoot I was really exhausted to my surprise.

Old Man's Mood Studies

The life drawing gets entertaining. We are asked to use different mediums and expressive techniques to convey an emotion , a state or mood. This time it was narcoleptic, melancholic, sneaky and pompous.

CAPS: Research for Fashion Photoshoot: i-D

 The Magazine:

i-D is a British magazine dedicated to fashion, music, art, youth culture and

 different issues around the central theme of identity. i-D was founded by

designer and former Vogue art director Terry Jones in 1980. Over the years the

magazine evolved into a mature glossy but it has kept street style and youth

central to every issue.

 

Tipped on its side, the "i-D" typographic logo reveals a winking smiley. Most issues of i-D magazine have featured a winking cover model.

The magazine is known for its innovative photography and typography, and over the years established a reputation as a training ground for fresh talent. The magazine pioneered the hybrid style of documentary/ fashion photography called ‘The Straight Up’. At first, these were of punks and New Wave youth found on English streets and who were simply asked to stand against any nearby blank wall. The resulting pictures—the subjects facing the camera and seen from "top to toe"—are a vivid historical documentary photography archive, and have established the posed "straight up" as a valid style of documentary picture-making.

 

Photographers :

• Nick Knight,
• Wolfgang Tillmans,
• Juergen Teller,
• Terry Richardson,
• Ellen von Unwerth,
• Kayt Jones 

Analysis for Preperation:

The issues have developed but retained 'core mantra' : 'Originate, don't imitate'

Essentially it seems that there is a dominant light from one side and slightly from above, which is modeling the shadows. For shadows are gradient and soft, it must've been soft box light or beauty dish.  Also, face is lit the brightest, perhaps using white or golden reflectors.

The background is not overcomplicated, and grey or white colorama is used. Some pictures use ‘screen’ or postproduction techniques to partly obscure the image. Most of the times, models are dressed in bold clothing,often limited to black and white pallet. 

It can be noticed that the image is complimented with lots of geometrical shapes to tie the image together (For example a reflection of the mode on the wall, which reaches to the end of frame) and direct the eye of the viewer towards model’s face ( hand towards the face, décolleté as a frame for the face).

To keep the photo-shoot guided, I have gathered some pose references for the model from i-D magazine history images. 

 The pose references and Example images of i-D issue work as moodboards for the fashion shoot

To end the analysis, it seems that i-D’s shooting style and approach resembles that of Brassai’s : full of soft gradient light, tonal values. I’D’s photography quite often goes with desaturated or almost desaturated imagery.

 

  And one particular image of Edward Steichen: