Various Other Doodlings

And now for some drawings unrelated to robots. 

There was a post floating around on Tumblr about how you could tell when a shark was actually aiming to bite something, as they'd thrust their jaws out. The above picture was shown, and it looked so silly to me that I couldn't help but do a doodle.

He's the happiest shark in the world. :> So happy that he... apparently wants to bite something. Oh dear.

More TAC stuff up next. I'd been thinking about Tlun's species, and decided that he's actually pretty scrawny compared to the average. His pack ended up abandoning him as a result of it, and he ended up seeking refuge in an abandoned village and hasn’t really left it since. He got used to solitude, and so wasn’t very happy when it was disturbed by Zombie’s arrival during the events of TAC.

I don't think even Zombie would want to mess with the big guy on the left. (Biscuit probably would, though.)

Biro doodlings of some of my monster characters. I still haven't thought of a name for the weird dragon/mermaid hybrid.

With the newest series of Pokemon out, I couldn't help but doodle my new favourite final starter evolution, Chesnaught. What's not to like about a chesnut-themed bearded armadillo knight?

I found this saved on the laptop I usually use when I'm using the Cintiq and I can safely say I don't remember drawing it. I must have been so blinded by its beauty that my mind couldn't take it and repressed the memory.

And last but not least, a drawing of myself as a pepperoni pizza because why not. 

Three's Still A Crowd

It's been several months since I completed "Three's A Crowd", but I'm still frequently drawing the characters and their world. Zombie, Biscuit and Tlun all started off as completely separate characters with nothing to do with each other, but bringing them together for the purpose of my final film was a great decision and I'm thankful to my friends for giving me the idea. They all just work off each other so well, from their personalities to their colour schemes, and the TAC world is not one I've forgotten.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I got to try out a Cintiq, and this was another thing I drew with it. I wanted to muck about with perspective and stuff, and I'm happy with the results - so much so that I wish I'd been able to draw it earlier so I could have used it as a poster for the degree show! Ah well. Apparently, Zombie hasn't learned from the last time he pissed Tlun off.

Felt like drawing human Tlun for some reason, so I did. I think he needs to be more top-heavy and have white hair instead though, since he doesn't look enough like Tlun for my liking.

Zombie and Biscuit naptimes. Sometimes I feel like their horns are less like horns and more like ears.

Various Doodlings

Aaaand now for some non-robot related drawings.

First off, some sort of... grinny tooth-y fish thing. I don't think it's actually capable of properly opening its mouth.

Zombie and Biscuit looking silly, because my characters just aren't my characters unless I regularly draw stupid versions of them.

A new misc was added to Team Fortress 2 recently known as the Pop-Eyes, which are now rivalling the googly eyes for my favourite cosmetic item for the Pyro. Here's the mercenary in question showing off his beautiful new eyes to the Scout.

And last but not least, here we have a very colourful dinosaur thing that probably can't stand up very well. I don't think many of my doodled creatures would be able to physically function in the real world.

Videos Galore

And now onto the animations I've done.

I had rushes today, so I took the scenes that I've managed to get done so far and put them all together, adding sounds and music and things as appropriate to give an idea of how it's all coming together. I've decided I need to tweak the second part of the opening scene a bit, most likely just moving Zombie and Biscuit further down the hill to give a better impression that they're travelling and that's why Biscuit is tired.

I also tested out Tlun's new rig by animating one of the scenes I'd been looking forwards to doing, where Tlun seems to land on Zombie. Obviously it's still a work-in-progress and I still need to draw up an actual background for it, and I'm going to change Tlun's reaction after he lands and realises he didn't get anything, but otherwise I like how it turned out.

I'd spent most of the day animating Zombie and Biscuit, so when I first started working on this scene, I got to a certain part and then decided to work on a scene involving Tlun instead, since I was getting a bit burnt out animating these two. This is what I had already done when I made the decision, but when I came to work on it the next day, I ended up changing Zombie's movements completely because I didn't like how they looked and his position would've just made the rest of the scene awkward to do.

While I was first working on the aforementioned scene, scrubbing back and forth over the timeline made it look as though Zombie was dancing, according to my friends. So I made this. (I hadn't extended the frames for all the pieces properly at that point, which is why things randomly vanish.) My friends suggested I should have Zombie doing that dance in the credits.

Rig Mishaps & Silly Expressions

I have a bunch of screenshots I took of things that amused me during the process of rigging/animating, so I figured I may as well give them their own post.

Before that, though, here's some before and after shots of Tlun's rig. His first one was too thin for my liking and made him look too much like a puppet, since I'd been having trouble trying to figure out how to do his arms. Animating three separate pieces proved to be awkward, so I updated them and poofed up his fluff a bit to make him look bigger and more intimidating. Now his arms are made up of two pieces, one of which makes use of replacements.

Some screenshots I took while in the process of getting Zombie and Biscuit into the same scene, and posing them so Biscuit was carrying him by the scruff of his neck. Zombie was initially huge when I imported him in, and then while trying to get Zombie's back to go behind Biscuit's mouth, I realised it kind of looked like she was eating him. After that, I noticed it looked like Zombie's horn was going through her eye. 

Some silly expressions from after Zombie's little bath. First he looks horrified, and then angry. Then weirdly smarmy for some reason.

What's That?

Got a few little scenes done today of Zombie's reactions to spotting the village off in the distance. Hopefully I'll have the village entrance drawn up soon so I can put them between these scenes.

Zombie's first reaction to spotting the village off in the distance. I'm probably going to tweak the facial expressions at some point, since at the moment he kind of looks more confused than curious.

Zombie looking back to make sure Biscuit isn't looking. His expression after looking back at the village a third time will be more mischievous and eager looking.

Also, some expressions in between keyframes that I found amusing enough to take screenshots of. :P

Some Minor Adjustments

I ended up doing a little test to see how it'd look with the background from the first scene, but I found that it made the snow look really flat in comparison to the other background.

So, I made a few little tweaks to the snow that comes up when he lands, and swapped the backgrounds round again. 

Even Monster Kids Love Snow

Scene 5 is pretty much done now. I’m not sure I’m happy with the background, though - the one I used in the test seemed to work better, but I’m not sure I can get away with reusing the background from the opening shot. I'll have to get some feedback from my tutors on that.

In any case, future tweaks aside, Zombie’s movements and things for this scene are complete. I added in some snow in Toon Boom for his impacts, although that might need tweaking a bit as well, since it blends in with the background a little too much.

This is the background I drew up for this scene. The backgrounds aren't really the main focus any more, so I didn't spend more than a few minutes on this. I'm thinking I might have to use it for something else instead (most likely during the opening when it's slowly zooming in on Biscuit carrying Zombie), since at the moment it doesn't really match the current scene, to me.

There's Snow Day Like A Snow Day

It was suggested that I add a snowy effect to the first scene to help set the mood a bit more. It's something I'd been thinking about, and my initial plan was to save it until I'd done the animation, but I figured there was no harm in doing a bit of experimentation in Adobe After Effects. Adding a snow effect was really simple, and I like how it looks. I'll probably be using it for most of the outside scenes, although it'll likely be thinner and a bit less noticeable in the village scenes.

Did the same with the scene in which Zombie plays in the snow, and worked on the animation a bit more, too. It’s still not complete yet (there are a lot more movements I have yet to do, as well as secondaries and follow throughs and whatnot), which is why his mouth vanishes partway through. The background’s also still a placeholder for now, but other than that, I like how this is shaping up so far.

I had a bit of a mishap with background placement at one point while working on the scene, which made Zombie go behind the mountains and made him look huge.

And then I sort of ran with it and made this very silly animation. Giant Zombie attack!

To finish things off, here's an amusing screenshot I took before I'd moved Zombie's eyes to the correct positions when he turns his head.

Some WIPs

Here’s another test for the opening scene - this time I’ve changed the camera movements and added a bit of the soundtrack to see how it goes with the opening. The title is a placeholder, and there’s likely going to be a cross-fade transition into the next scene, so Biscuit’s very basic movements shouldn’t be too noticeable. 

I’m also thinking of adding something flying across the top of the screen in the distance, since it seems a bit empty at the moment.

And here’s a WIP for scene 5, in which Zombie is playing in the snow before noticing the village in the distance (although I haven’t gotten up to that point yet). The background’s just a placeholder for now, and I put a bit of a blue overlay over it to unify the colours a little more. I’ll likely be doing this for all the scenes.

Continuing my tradition of posting amusing rig mishaps and silly faces in between keyframes, have these, too. Zombie and Biscuit are now giants, apparently.

Some Doodlings

Time for a few little drawings I've done when not working on rigs.

This was something I did for a little art challenge that was going around Tumblr, where you're linked to a random generator site and it gives you a random Pokemon. You then have to draw that Pokemon three times, but in a way that each looks like a different, unique characte while still being identifiable. I got Snubbull, and these were the designs I ended up with. It's a neat little exaggeration/character design exercise, so I'll probably be doing this again at some point.

There's a funny little story behind these ones. The first drawing was initially a little monster I'd doodled, and I'd given it a silly face, as I'm wont to do. But then I decided that it wasn't actually a face - rather, a pattern on its stomach that just looks like a face. My friend then doodled the little jumpy rock-like creatures, and we decided that the monster preyed on the little rocks, but was too slow and cumbersome to actually catch them. So, it lures them over instead, since they're curious little things, and then tries to get them when it thinks it's close enough.

I'd also done a silly scribbly little doodle of my dragon/mermaid creature, and another of my friends said I should give it Percy's face just for the fun of it. I took that one step further and drew a mermaid Percy, because... well, why not?

I then doodled Splashwoman next to him, because she's supposed to be the only mermaid Robot Master. :>

And last but not least, some silly warm-up doodles I did of Zombie in different styles. He's a chubby little thing, so I decided to see how he'd look if he was more spindly and lizard-like.

Three's Nearly A Crowd pt.1

I've been a bit behind with updates, so I think it's time to rectify that.

Now that my animatic's finally finalised, I'm getting to work on the character's rigs. Since Zombie moves about the most, I decided to start on his first, since he'd likely need the most pieces despite having the simplest design. These were the initial sketch pieces I started off with...

And this is what I finished off with. I was really unhappy with the initial lineless test, as it was far too simple for my liking. A lot of the character's details kind of got lost, so I decided to go with lines again and make use of the deformation tool like I did with Percy's Breakfast Adventure, although less so since I'll be making use of replacements and things this time.

I don't remember how many pieces there are in total, but there are well over a hundred. This is a general use rig - I'll probably be making separate, less elaborate ones for poses that only show up in a single scene and whatnot.

Here are some screenshots from when I was putting his rig together. His eyes were bugging me as they didn't really work with his head, but I decided to leave them as they were for the time being and get to work on a test animation.

 

This was the first test animation I did with Zombie's new rig. I didn't have much time until the studio closed when I started this, so that's why it's so quick. I also had some issues with pivot points messing with the replacement parts in one of his legs, but I was able to get that sorted.

When I got some feedback on the rig, the general consensus was that the eyes didn't really work with him - they made him look a little soulless, which shouldn't be what I'm going for considering he's the puppy of the story. 

I was able to make a longer test animation afterwards, and edited his eyes a little, but I'm still not happy with them. The softness of the shine doesn't really work with the line style, so I think I'm going to redo the eyes completely and make them more rounded, as opposed to oval-shaped.

And really, what's a rigging process without a few amusing mishaps?

Boing

Did a little rough test animation for when Zombie jumps up onto Tlun’s head. This was done to get an idea of how he’d move and what sort of replacement pieces I’d need for the jumping rig - in the actual animation itself, it’s likely there’ll be more usage of keyframes to help space it out a bit more. He’ll also be landing behind Tlun and running off, not disappearing off the screen as he jumps.

Clombie

Since I’ll be showing the characters in my animation from a wider variety of angles than I usually do, I made a clay model of Zombie, to help out when it comes to making the rigs and replacements. This way I'll be able to get a good idea of how he'll look from various angles.

I'll most likely be making another one at some point for Biscuit, although she'll probably be a little trickier to make than Zombie was. I might have a go at Tlun at some point, but chances are he'll be more difficult.

As a bonus image, here's my Burstman figure going for a little ride.