Meeting Doodle

Today's meeting; subject matter simply a continuation of yesterday's.

Meeting Doodle

None yesterday, since I didn't have any meetings, but today's was early...

New Pencil Test!

I haven't animated anything in a while, and, boy, did I miss it. This is a quick shot of Chitra upon waking up in the opening montage. In the end, this should be a longer shot, with him waking himself up and walking toward the 'camera' to get a cup of tea. I've storyboarded it a bit and played around with how I want it to work, though it's still not set in stone. Hopefully, I'll get a few more working animations done and will be able to compile something that gives an idea (maybe even with sound!) of what I'm going for in the first two or three minutes. The whole story is still a work in progress, so, yeah...

Making a Maquette

There seems to be a horde of websites and blogs about animation--everything from traditional 2-D to computer to stop-motion. However, one important part of the traditional animating process is having a sculpture of the character you want to draw, a maquette, that gives an animator the ability to visualize a character in three dimensions and keep the drawing consistent. Unfortunately, there is a veritable dearth of sites telling you how to make a maquette. I, being but a lowly amateur animator/sculptor, will attempt to fill this gap.

First, some reference points.

Here is the awesome site of Shane Zalvin, who has made some professional maquettes for Dreamworks productions (maquettes in the computer animating process are more conceptual, and 3-D character models are made off of them). He has some Disney sculptures as well, but they are for consumer products, not actual productions.

Here are two photos of Disney maquettes, one of Cookie from Atlantis and one of Koda and Kenai from Brother Bear.














For my yeti project, I've been working on the yeti himself as a maquette. Mine has not been baked (and likely won't be), though I'm looking at ways to make a mold for him so I can transfer the sculpture into resin.

How did the sculpture happen, though?

First, I had to decide what type of clay I was going to use. I knew that I wanted a modeling clay of some type (since I don't have a kiln). I went to the Utrecht store in downtown Chicago and bought medium-pliability, gray-green Roma Plastina. I found that the stuff was perfect; easy to mold (after a little kneading), but firm enough to keep me from worrying that it would melt into itself on a hot day. It cuts pretty roughly, but with some work, it smooths very well and doesn't leave many fingerprints, which was an added bonus for me.

I already owned some cheaper, more oily modeling clay (I think I bought it at Hobby Lobby or Michael's or something). I used that to make a model for the head that I would eventually create out of the Roma Plastina. It was an easy way to try out what I wanted to do.

I came up with this head, and I really liked it. I made a head out of the Roma Plastina that was very similar to it, though more on that later.

My first challenge was with the body. My yeti has a huge, heavy body, supported by relatively tiny legs. I needed some way to keep the body from being so heavy that it would make the legs collapse. My solution was aluminum foil. I molded it into the shape of the body and then covered it with a relatively thin (though far more than paper-thin) coat of clay.

I then began making the extremities. I used sculpting wire around each arm and leg, sticking it into the foil, to make them keep their shape and to keep them better attached to the body. When possible, I wanted to avoid having the clay supporting itself.

I also made a base (which was basically a messy-looking cut of the clay--it looked like rock).

I followed with the head, which I used a toothpick to attach. A few details, and presto! A maquette:

New Pencil Test

Here's a very rough pencil test for the sleeping Chitra. The yeti is surprised when Chitra snuggles against him, but he gingerly puts his arm around the boy. More work needed; not bad for a beginning.

Chitra Sleeping

In the story, Chitra follows the Yeti to his cave, where he gets stuck because of a snowstorm. The Yeti sits angrily against the wall of the cave, pouting a bit. Chitra comes over and, after a little while, falls asleep next to him. Here are a few drawings in the sequence. I'm hoping to have a pencil test of it soon.

Background Thumbnails

I'm beginning to make some backgrounds. I'm not exactly sure how I want everything to look, so I'm just playing around a bit for now. Here are two watercolor studies I did for the inside of Chitra's home (very simple; I'm sure to add more to it) and for the outside of the Yeti's cave.

Chitra Model Sheet

Chitra model sheet. I'm working on the Yeti's.

First pencil tests!

So--little project that I'm working on. Basic story: Nepali boy looking for firewood runs into Yeti, follows him back to cave, they become unlikely friends. Kind of unoriginal; I don't really care. There's a lot more to it, but that's the bare-bones summary. Here's the first pencil test (with my awesome new animation desk). I'm going to put up a few posts soon of how we made the desk, how I made the yeti maquette, and where this whole thing is going. I'm ridiculously excited about it.

The first is a yawning yeti (in the intro):





Next is the boy when he first runs into the yeti:



Both are very short and very rough, but, hey, it's a start.

Fun fact: the kid's name is Chitra, which means 'drawing' or 'picture' in Nepali. Get it? I crack myself up.