Squirrel and Tree

Project this time around was to take the ball with a tail and make it live. I decided that since we were given a circus environment, I would take that idea, and have the ball do some tricks. Studied trapeze artists' swinging motions to get the feel of the flip through the ring. I'm pretty happy with it, and it made the class TA stop and gawk for a moment sputtering about how "this is great" over and over again, so I felt pretty special for that one.

ALSO! BONUS POINTS! I had some time for personal drawing for once! We had a class intro to photoshop, and while the newbies to the program were learning the basics, I crapped out this little drawing!

Drawn first in my sketchbook, scanned, and then traced over in photoshop. Color is all digital.

Great Balls of Maya

So I've done 2D Animation balls and NOW I've done 3D Animation balls. Yay Balls!!

I want to note that I deserve like 5 million extra bonus points for this chain animation. The only part of the chain that can move is the top of the chain. The ball cannot be edited whatsoever because of the way it's rigged. The way I had to edit the ball/chain was to move the chain to the position I wanted it, then turn the ENTIRE RIG around to put the ball back into place where it looked like it rolled naturally.

I don't know how to explain it more than that. Hopefully that makes my headache clear for you guys.

Kingly Turn of Post

Last time on Temple of the Bald Messiah! Our hero was given the task to create a bouncing ball using only a piece of paper, two pencils and a camera! After completing this most epic of quests, he has found himself with instruction to turn the head of a famous Disney character! This tale of adventure, heartache, wonder, and woe has been preserved for your viewing pleasure in the video above.

Stayed tuned next time as we see our take on the twin dragons of Character Design and Realistic Action!

(btw, do yourselves a favor and click the full screen button on the bottom right of the above video)

THE THIRD DIMENSION!

So I've been taking a class in 3D Modelling, and we were given a theme to fit into with all of our props. Our first week we were required to make one prop of any kind. Most of my classmates created a glass vial or a bottle or what have you, I created this:

And then I created this on top of it:

The second week we were required to make two props of any kind, and I forged these two from the fires of Maya

The third week we made a complete object in class since everyone was getting the hang of the program a little better, and that was this object:

And then the class was over and we were assigned two additional props to be turned in this tuesday:

I also have already created a desk for the book to rest on and a control panel for the power generator to be used. I'm going to add a larger part to the generator to make it seem like it's really puttin out some juice.

We haven't learned any form of texturing or shading, so the only thing I know enough to do there is to drag and drop a Phong or Blinn onto these, and that really wouldn't do any good so I'm leaving them grey until I'm instructed on proper texturing. I look forward to all of these being part of a cohesive scene with walls and lighting and the like.

Vikings 2: Asgard Strikes Back

My character design teacher made us revisit our viking designs from the previous week and in doing so I finally nailed using the shapes he's been trying to get us to focus on while maintaining my particular graphic style. The result? The first designs I'm truly proud of, and the first said teacher has ACTUALLY complimented. He said he's worked on some shows that looked like this. :D