Thursday 22 December 2016

Minor Project - Mother Rigged & The 'Happy' Family


The mum is pretty much finished, there are still some skinning issues with the dress but I will iron those out and hopefully it will all work nicely. I got some advice from Alan on how to tackle it which involved creating a duplicate mesh and using rivets to control the main mesh.


I couldn't resist putting the family together, so I quickly put them all in a scene and posed them for a group photo. While doing this I noticed that two of the boys buttons weren't working correctly, they had some how flipped, so I will be investigating that as well as polishing the mothers dress.

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Minor Project - Mother Model & UV's


The mother is now modelled and had her uv's laid out, next I will copy the rig from the dad and get onto skinning.

Minor Project - Dad Textures


The Dad is pretty much where he needs to be so I will now move onto getting the Mother done and then it is time to tackle the bed.


Saturday 17 December 2016

Minor Project - Dad Rigging #1


The Dad is rigged, I will be exporting the rig so I can reuse it for the mother when she is modelled. Next up I'll get him skinned and then some textures painted for him.

Thursday 15 December 2016

Minor Project - Dad Model & UV's


The Dad is modelled and has his UV's laid out ready for skinning! Soon the boy will have a "loving" family!

Wednesday 14 December 2016

Minor Project - Boy Textures #01


These are the current textures for the boy, he is currently missing his buttons because I couldn't remember how to attach them to the rig, so that will be a question for Alan. I can now move onto the parents, the boy will need some additional face shapes when it comes to lip syncing as I want the transition between shapes to be smooth at points.

Sunday 11 December 2016

Minor Project - Boy Face Textures #01


Today I worked on getting some face shapes done for the boy, I decided to create them in Illustrator as the smooth vector lines were something I wanted to achieve. There is still stuff to clean up and I need to create all of the Phonemes but it is really exciting seeing him come to life!

Thursday 8 December 2016

Minor Project - Boy PJ's Rig Test


I've been trying to work on a way to rig the PJ's so that they can be deformed with the leg, this is my first test using a NURBs circle as a motion path with joints attached. It automates the deformation quite nicely and it's possible for me to add individual controls to control each joint separately. Below is an image of what the rig looks like so far it still needs skinning adjustments but the method seems to be relatively decent.


Tuesday 6 December 2016

Minor Project - Boy Test Textures


I took a break from skinning/pose space deformation stuff to rough in some textures, I was mainly concerned with getting some rough eyes and a mouth in and figuring out the spacing. There is still a lot of work to be done with positioning and scale but the boy is starting to come to life.

Friday 2 December 2016

Minor Project - Boy Rigging #3


The boy's arms are now rigged, have squash and stretch and IK/FK functionality. Like the legs they have flexi-planes as part of the rig to add some extra control when it comes to skinning. Once I've checked over the rig to make sure there isnt any issues I can start skinning!

Wednesday 30 November 2016

Minor Project - Boy Rigging #2


I finished off the leg rigging today and started on the arms, here are some of the various expressions/node editor work that I had to do to get the rig to be stretchy in both IK and FK mode.

Friday 25 November 2016

Minor Project - Boy Rigging #1


Rigging is well underway, I decided to do the same rig that I used in my Adaptation B project, it will overall give me more control and exaggeration when it comes to animation. So far I've set up the spine, the neck, a temporary head joint and I'm halfway through the legs. Next I'll be working on FK controls and switching the visibilty between IK and FK controls, I'll also be adding flexiPlanes to the legs and arms to allow for better deformation.

Thursday 24 November 2016

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Minor Project - Boy Model


I did some cleaning up of the geometry today and fixed some issues with the model. I just need to add eyebrows and buttons for his shirt, I'll do these when I start to layout the UV's.

Monday 21 November 2016

Minor Project - Boy Legs & Feet Modelling #1

The feet could possibly use a bit more sculpting but overall I am quite happy with how they turned out. The boy is pretty much done modelling wise, I am still unsure if I should give him modelled brows or have them drawn on like the eyes and mouth will be.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Minor Project - Hand Modelling #1


Today I cleaned up the body a bit and work on the hand and leg. The hand still needs to be attached but it is exciting to see the boy come together.

Monday 14 November 2016

Minor Project - Boy Body Modelling #1


The collar still needs some work, but overall I am quite happy with how the boy is coming along.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Personal Work - Daily Paintings #01

This week I started painting something everyday, I am going to try to make a painting a day from now on to hopefully help me improve and make me quicker at painting. I'll be posting them daily at: https://www.instagram.com/serafini_art/ and I'll be adding them weekly here.








Minor Project - Boy Head Modelling #1


I started modelling the boy's head, It was fun to get back into 3D but at the same time I felt extremely rusty at modelling. The mesh is still a bit lumpy in places, but it is a good working base. Look forward to bringing this little guy to life.

Monday 7 November 2016

Minor Project - Animation #4


Added a contra zoom during the room transformation scene inspired by poltergeist. I also found some placeholder music and sound effects.

Sunday 6 November 2016

Minor Project - The Bedroom


I felt as if an educational poster on spiders was a nice little touch, knowledge is power after all.

Friday 4 November 2016

Minor Project - Shark Bed Thumbnails


These are probably far too detailed as in reality you're only ever going to see the silhouette of the 'shark' however it was easier for me to draw them slightly more detailed. I think 7 and 9 are my favourite, but I think 7 could use beefing up to be more bulky and intimidating.

Minor Project - Bed Spider Design


I need to figure out how the 'shark' bed looks next, as it will never be seen I will be focusing on its mass as opposed to a fully fleshed out design.

Minor Project - The Monster Concept Art


'He sees the bed creep toward him, not a shark now, a spider!'

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Minor Project - Ocean Concept


I did a quick concept painting for the ocean scene, I tried to push the lighting as much as I could to make it a bit dramatic.

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Minor Project - Environment Thumbnails #2

Following feedback I received earlier I decided to have a play around with the room a bit, I am still exploring the world and seeing what works.

Minor Project - Environment Thumbnails & Parents Orthographic


I changed up the colour scheme for the wardrobe and bedside table and then did some quick sketches of the room, it's furnishing and colour is still going to be explored but in this one I tried to make it quite dull.

I also did a quick parents turnaround to use as a starting point in Maya, I feel as if I will be able to model these characters without a guide but having something to get the model started is always useful.

Monday 31 October 2016

Happy Halloween


Last minute halloween painting, next year I'm going to be more prepared!

Sunday 30 October 2016

Minor Project - Animatic #3


I've adjusted the ending in the animatic now to follow the new storyboard I made, I still need to flesh out the bedroom transformation a bit more. This will help me understand how I can make it in Maya and help the animatic read slightly better.

Friday 28 October 2016

Minor Project - Storyboard Ending & Boy Orthographic Changes

I got some feedback on my animatic from Alan and Mark Davies (Nexus) and it was apparent that the ending needed adjusting, so I storyboarded out an idea that could potentially work, I think it will be slightly more impactful.


Also during my tutorial with Alan it was discussed that the orthographic was slightly incorrect in the arms and because my character wont have shoulders we decided it will be easier to model him in an 'A' pose. This will definitely help with rigging so I am glad that it was an option.


Minor Project - Bed Thumbnails #6


I made the decision to make the furniture less suitable for a child and slightly more gothic, so here is some redesigns of the bed. I decided that the most important part is the front half, as that is all that will be seen in the animation. This means the back will most likely just be there as a mass as opposed to a refined model. 31 is my favourite and I think it is the bed I will take forward as the spider monster.

Thursday 27 October 2016

Minor Project - Furniture Thumbnails #2


I think that having the furniture slightly darker and more gothic is a good approach for the overall tone of the animation, almost as if the boy has been put in a room that wasn't meant for a child. I also started to sketch how the head board of the bed could look which means the monster needs some rethinking.

Minor Project - Animatic #2


I've got the full narration now and changed up some of the pacing and shots, I adjusted the ocean scene to try to add more tension in it.


Tuesday 25 October 2016

Minor Project - Boy Expressions #1


The first batch of expressions for the boy, so I will be more prepared for Maya I made sure I kept all the elements on separate layers. I also have been thinking that the boys eyebrows will be geometry as opposed to drawing them on.

Work Experience "Proper - Tripl Stitched" Animation


This was one of the few projects I worked on while at Nexus, I can now share the final animation but I need to wait a while before I can show the animatic I did for it. The project was a lot of fun to work on and I was grateful to be welcomed back to Nexus to help with the shoot.

Monday 24 October 2016

Minor Project - Furniture Thumbnails #1


Today I started working on the wardrobe and bedside cabinet for my animation, using samurai jack, powerpuff girls and upa animations as a style reference. I will continue to explore these objects as they will be the main hero props. I need to make sure that the top of the wardrobe isn't too complicated as the boy will spend some scenes on top of it.