Ok. That's not a lot. Penguins are classic cartoon characters. They've always been fairly prevelent in animation, because there's a lot you can do with them, and they're one of the few "cute" birds you can use. Not to mention they're child sized. So what do we do with this child sized bird?
Why not pair him up with a child? OK. So we've got a child and a penguin. Then what? Well we decided that the penguin is picking on the little child (Because animal cruelty isn't funny). Well I had a child model. It was pretty unspectacular, though, and the weights would have to be extensively repainted, as well as being rerigged completely. So Emily and I were talking about the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and I was doodling trying to think of ideas for the story and where it would take place when I drew this picture:
For
a while this is all we really have to go on for the look of the piece, because I had forgotten what Neil's penguin model looked like and Emily had no idea how it looked in the first place. So we drew the little boy in a story board or three, and pretty much solidified what he looked like. I did a turn around and gave it to Emily so she could model it for the project, which she did. She did a pretty great job, and the few things she got wrong were easily fixable or negligable.The negotiations for the group project were near a close. I had a drawn animatic finished as well as a rig for the boy, Emily had finished the model and laid out the UVs, and Neil had worked on making his penguin more pliable, and did some of the playground. But then the big question came up.
What's the look of this piece?
Well Emily and I just looked at each other and just figured, what the hell? It's a Cel Shaded piece. It presents a few new challenges, and takes some of the annoying old ones away. So we both confidently chimed in "It's Cel Shaded" and the teacher agreed that it would look neat Cel Shaded, and could possibly cut our render times into 1/40th without taking away any of the feel of the overall project, which is incredibly important.
So the boy is done. James Lee, our instructor, needs to go over the model with me because I
messed up orienting some things, and the eyes don't work quite the way I want them to. From the picture at the right, the boy didn't quite work as well as we'd have like in tradional 3D. Well he does work well except for the fact that he's lit really poorly in this scene. I mean, it works, but it doesn't have the style we're looking for and it brings me to an important point:Why 3D? I think it's something that everyone needs to think about when they're about to start a big 3D project. Would our little short work in 2D? Why should we do 3D instead of 2D? In all honesty the whole idea stemmed from a 3D video game. Emily and I aren't going to fight the fact that our character was born out of a discussion of the Wind Waker, and it was the only style we could really agree on. If you were to look at her artwork, and then look at my artwork, and were to create some fictional middle ground, it may very well have been close to what "The Wind Waker" did, with a slight western spin.
And I pretend that that is why we're doing this in 3D, even though the real reason is because I'm the only one in our group that likes to animate enough to pump out 2 minutes of 2D animation in a five week period. That and I am now commuting to school, and the idea of waking up at 5:50 am every day is about as exciting as driving a spike right into my forehead.
So anyway, what I'm getting at is that we're now entering the second stage of our final, starting thursday of next week. This stage is all me. It's all animation, and I love to animate. This animation, which stated above, should total out to about two minutes, has to be done around December 7th. If I do it and work really hard, which I will, I should get the entire thing done with time to spare. Which will be good, because I finally have directors, people telling me what's wrong and what to fix and how to fix it. I'm excited, and anyone who's used to the amount of output possible by me should be excited too, because when I get going, I just go, and I pump things out at an almost alarming rate. Is it good when I go super fast to bang everything out? No it's not that good. It's OK, but if I get done 2 weeks early, then I have two weeks to make things better, and then a three week break to perfect things. People are depending on me, so I will do better work than usual. If you only do enough to make yourself happy, sometimes you get tired and just stopping and taking a nap will make you happy, but when there are people counting on you, then the only thing that will make them happy is finishing what you started, and now I finally get to rock out and really show everyone what I'm made of.
I'm sure this reads like the ramblings of a hyperactive child,
Ian M.
