Walk Cycle Ball in Flash

The goal was to take the walk cycle from before and re-do it in Adobe Flash to learn how the Flash armatures worked.  It was a struggle, but I finally figured them out (after re-rigging my character numerous times) to the point where they functioned for me.  I added the bits and pieces to get a little more practice in.


I preferred the hand-drawn method better.  I had more control and could fudge more things, while this ended up feeling a little stiff.  The Flash armatures felt like they were just not quite there yet, but I feel like I could end up using them in the future and be happy.

Zelda Fire Rod Redesign Concept

This project was to take an item from an old-school 16-bit game, and redesign it as a brand new concept.  I took 3 objects and came up with a number of silhouettes for each.  After one was chosen, I produced 12 value permutations of the object.  After that, it took one and fleshed it out in color and lighting.  I tried to focus on the function of the object in the design; the fire rod shot little fire balls to light lamps from a distance, for example.  In this version, I gave it a bit of a mechanic-y flare, and used the lighter-style perforated metal to drive the point home.

One of the points of the project was to use this sort of illustrative cel-shaded style, which I must say I was quite a fan of.  I'm sure I will be revisiting this coloring style in future personal projects, assuming I ever get the time to make another... 

Walk Cycle Ball Animation

We just had to do a walk cycle with just legs.  This just sort of evolved while I was working on the first part.  I wanted to do some run cycles, which is where the smaller leg balls came from.

Metorid-Style Missle Model

We were given a choice of several missle concepts, and were to model, texture, and present the projects with our own little tweaks.  Here is the result of my project.

Flour Sack and Squirrel Ball Animations

More animations!  I am loving 2D once again.  It's just feels so free.  The first is a flour sack, and again, I believe flour sacks are meant to be destroyed (and nearly our whole class' animations agreed.)




The second is just a simple character with appeal.  Originally, I was going to play up weight, but I instead wanted to focus on the movement and overlap on the squirrely tail and the hair.  I gave it some cartoon strength to push that massive rock, which ties in with my friend's character that gets hit by said rock.
 

Zelda Items Redesign

The task was to redesign three items from the Legend of Zelda series.  I chose items from Link to the Past; the mirror, the fire rod, and the grappling hook.

The grappling hook was the most obvious of the items. I imagined how they might work internally, and for each of the designs, I tried to show that in the silhouette.  The fire rod was simply trying to decide how to represent a rod that can form fire.  Two were magical, and two were more mechanical.

The mirror, I thought was the most clever.  The purpose of the mirror is to send you into the past, a sort of alternate dimension.  In each of my mirror designs, I made sure the mirror could swivel; the idea being, when shifting to the other world, Link looks into the mirror, then turns the mirror surface around, shifting the world around him.

More Bouncing Ball Animations

Here are my first two animations for FIEA.  It ended up being a bit of a review, so I tried to make it interesting.  The first one was a basic ball bounce.  On the second one, I wanted to play with overlapping action, so I did the quintessential tail ball.




I used a program called Plastic Animation Paper.  It is like a digital animation light table.  You can get it for free from their website.  I used it last year for planning out 3D animations, and I highly recommend it.

Lutra Modeling WIP - Part Two

EDIT: I've moved this project to a permanent hiatus.  Perhaps I will revisit Lutra one day, but for now, I'm focusing on other projects.

Finished up a lot of the body, and face is started

I feel like I might be using too many polys in the body, since it really is quite simple.  Perhaps I need to alter the silhouette a bit, but that will come after I finish the head and hair.  That will be where a load of the silhouette comes from already.

Lutra Modeling WIP - Part One

I finally got a chance to work on the model, as the summer is drawing to a close.  I had some 3D 'sketches' done (in blue), but almost all of the actual modeling progress was done today.  Between full time work, a car crash, and moving, I've had little time to really sit down and model, so today has been really refreshing.  For now, I have this teaser.

I do want to say, Max is very nice for hard-edge modeling, but it feels great to be back in Maya.  I do like hard-edge and organic modeling, but I think I slightly prefer the latter.

D&D Campaign Session Sketches

These are notecard sketches I did during our first four sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.  These are events that happened during the adventure.  I have my own Nassa the Gnome, Robert playing Norgar the Human (Vryloka), and Cole playing Audrik the Dwarf.

If you're interested in following along, I've been taking notes and uploading them to D&D Short Tales.