UV Mapping

In order to prepare for the lesson on UV mapping, I did a short exercise myself experimenting with planar mapping using a rainbow target I quickly made in Photoshop.

During the lesson itself we were taught more basics of UV mapping, using a model made by the tutor.

I felt like I needed to learn more, so I did some practice by myself after the lesson. I modelled a fish quickly in Maya and painted a texture map in Photoshop to go with it. Although the model and colours are a little rushed and basic, it definitely benefitted my learning.

Modelling

During the lesson we got back into hang of modelling by making teapots in Maya. 

After making a number of different teapots our assignment was to give our teapot a character. I wanted to avoid the Beauty and the Beast cliché of just giving it a mouth and eyes, so I tried to approach it in a different way by using form and shape.

Following on from the character design sketches, I grew attached to the lizard designs. As I have a bearded dragon of my own I thought I'd make the design more simplistic and realistic. I didn't feel the need to add anything extra to his anatomy as he has plenty of character as it is! I started off by doing some life drawing of him in his vivarium.

In one of our lessons we tried making clay sculptures of our designs to get an idea of what our character would look like in 3D; unfortunately I missed this lesson due to ill health. I tried to catch up in my own time, however I missed out some of the fundamentals of modelling with clay - something I've never actually done before - such as making an armature, or buying better quality clay!

It's suffice to say that I should probably stick with digital modelling...!

The Fun Part

Here is a collection of some of the character design sketches I accumulated over the course of two weeks. I started off with humanistic characters but after a while I wanted to try something different, so I continued with animalistic designs which I think were a little more successful.

I then started fine tuning some of the designs, focusing on a little elephant, 'Ellie', and a mutant lizard/rat/hamster...

Beginnings

The focus for this term will be centered around character design, resulting in a fully modelled character by the end of the project! This will lead on to next term's project - environmental design - so when thinking of characters we need to keep story and location in mind. We started by looking at other examples of character design and what makes a distinct, successful design.

We watched the animation, 'French Roast' for inspiration - all of the characters were unique and memorable, and importantly, all have distinctive silhouettes. As an exercise, we were told to try doing our own designs for the characters. This was fun, but challenging considering I already had the memorable designs from the animation in my mind.

After a long summer with not much drawing practice at all, I thought it would be a good idea to get back in the habit of drawing before I attempted some proper character design. I did this by practicing a little life drawing and doing quick sketches of friends and classmates.

Environments & Swiss Army Knives

We were told to start thinking about environments for our characters and to come up with some preliminary ideas in the form of quick sketches and thumbnails. We had to come up with three environments with a story arch in mind:

1. Home - Where the character lives, feels comfortable. The beginning of the story.

2. Somewhere new - A new area the character has to explore. Tension rising.

3. Somewhere scary - An alien location where the drama happens. Dramatic contrast.

I hadn't thought of a strong story yet, so it was a good exercise to get me to start thinking about the adventures my character, or my bearded dragon, could have. Instead of putting him where he would normally be in the wild - the desert, large areas of sand and rocks - I decided I could put him somewhere similar to where he lives now - a manmade vivarium in a flat in London. I decided the latter was not necessarily as visually rich, but as a modeller, it would give me more challenges and a lot more to work with.

I thought it would make it more visually exciting to see the environment through the lizards eyes, so instead of a small plastic plant climbing up the side of the vivarium wall, it could be a huge burst of fauna, like vines in a jungle, or instead of a food bowl with a small pile of rocket, it could be a giant mountain of food, through his perspective. I imagined that he could climb up this massive tree trunk (which in reality is a medium sized piece of driftwood) and find a way out through the back of his little world (vivarium) into the next environment. In order for him to make this unlikely move, I could introduce another character, a cricket, to lead him there.

There he meets a swarm of cables and electricals which he has to travel down in order to try to catch the cricket. He has to face many man made objects, such as a colossal lamp and a blaring television. The cricket starts climbing up a tall, toppling pile of books and magazines, leading the lizard to his third environment...

Which takes him to a windowsill with the window slightly open. He looks over the edge to see something far more frightening than the cables/lamp/TV - a gigantic drop and a busy road underneath. Terrified, he takes a few steps back and falls over the edge of the windowsill and on to the floor again. He turns around and sees the cricket standing outside his vivarium, beckoning him back home.

The story isn't well developed or imaginative, but I wanted it to be simple and environment driven, as opposed to action driven. I'm sure I will probably end up with something completely different by next term, but it serves as a good starting point. The last frame shows a simple floor plan.

In my free time over the past couple of weeks I have been following another modelling tutorial that has no connection to character design, but was good practice for modelling in Maya. The tutorial was extremely helpful in that it took me through the many different ways of modelling in Maya, however if I was modelling a pen knife of my own I probably would have done it in a slightly different, simpler way!