Rabbit Turnaround

(6th post tonight- holy moly)

This will actually be a very short post even though it feels like it should be a long one. A Turnaround is when you show what a character, object, etc looks like from different angles. The assignment here was to show a character from the front as well as the back. I could use a character I had already created in the past or completely start over.

Using an existing character sounded like the smartest way to go. Especially since I was so far behind in all my assignments. But I knew that my previous characters were pretty complex and I wanted to do something simple so I could catch up. I did some simple thumbnails and I ended up with:

sketchwipv1A turtle. A bad turtle. I figured it had smooth skin with almost no weird hairs or bones or joints or items that needed to be rendered. Plus since I had to draw him from behind it would be way different from the front image because of the shell.

I played around with it during the line art but for some reason I just decided it would take too long. So I went back and looked at the silhouettes I did in the first term:

silhouettes2

Most of these didn’t seem really all that complicated but I wanted really simple. I decided the second guy from the bottom. The rabbit.

Then I did something I had never done before. I sketched, lined, valued, coloured and textured an entire character in one sitting.

rabbitturnaround1I’ll admit that the character is simple but man that felt good. For me I always sit down and think that concept art should take a long time. The professionals are fast and know what they are doing. I’m slow because I’m new.

This time I knew what I needed to do and I did it. The next day I sat down and I did it again.

rabbitturnaroundThe behind side took a little longer (especially getting the legs into proper perspective) but it still wasn’t the struggle that most of my assignments have been.

My school, The Vancouver Animation School, works. It’s that simple.

Oh also I was pretty pleased with the colour of the character.

Michael

Finished Creature Design – Tree Rabbit

Diary!

I’m back to the ol’ blog but this time I actually have a finished assignment. Ok, technically only half of the assignment is finished. I still have a cityscape to draw. Details, details. But the rabbit is done.

rabbittree50percWoo! This is probably the most textured character I’ve ever done. I’m sure there are lots of technical bits that I screwed up on but I really really tried to think out what I was doing while I drew this. I hope it shows.

And of course, the obligatory animation:

rabbitprocessI want to actually record a drawing from sketch to full render but I start and stop drawing so often I’m not sure how it’ll work. Especially with all the experimenting/screwing up I do I might not want people to see my process. One day though.

Here are all the steps un-animated if you really want a closer look.

rabbittreeprocessI’ll be assigned a new assignment in about 2 hours so expect a lot of posts coming up. I still have to do the cityscape from last week. (Don’t judge me!) But after this week I’ll be all caught up again.

Michael

My First Late Assignment

No Diary! Don’t look at me! I’m a monster!

No really. I’m the worst. See the title of this post? That doesn’t even begin to say how late I am. Today is December 20th (at roughly 1am) and my assignment was due on December 13th. A WEEK AGO! And it’s still not close to finished.

We had an auction last weekend. A very successful one at that. It’s been 10+ hour days for the last 10 days to prepare for, run, and finish the auction. Unfortunately we didn’t anticipate how successful it actually would be. We broke all our records for registered bidders both in-house and online. And 34% of the items sold online! That’s three times our normal (we usually dance around 9%). That’s a lot of money to chase down and a lot of items to ship.

I won’t get into all the gritty details of it (maybe I will on the auction blog though). The point is that I’ve been too busy for drawing. And I didn’t pick an easy creature to draw either. The premise: A giant anthropomorphized rabbit made of trees!

Here are the sketches from when I was creating the pose/form for him (before adding the wood details).
rabbitsketcheswipOriginally I had him being a ‘protector’ of sorts. There was going to be a sick girl inside his stomach that he’s keeping safe. But clearly that’s way to much work for me this week. At the last two stages you can see I scrapped it. But I still kept the hollow chest cavity. I thought maybe I’d put a fire or wisp or something. It’s a magic tree guy. Might as well have magic.

Now came the tricky part of adding wood. I specifically wanted a ‘Strangling tree’ effect. These are trees that fight for light in dense forests and will wrap around other trees or itself or buildings just to gain ground.

banyantreeI seriously picked the hardest tree texture in the world. Why do I hate myself so much?

I started trying to turn that basic rabbit form into a tree but I was very quickly losing the ‘volume’ of the character. Plus you couldn’t tell which parts were his limbs. I decided to go more constructive (Adrian should be proud).

rabbittreewireframeThis is a technique the school made us learn in the first term and honestly since that lesson I don’t think I’ve ever used the skill again. But today I used it and it really helped. It demonstrates where the character gets thicker or thinner and what the limbs center lines are. You can even sort of see how the inside is hollow. I’ll definitely be using this technique again.

rabbittreewipThere he is. Does it look like he’s made of strangling wood? I need to do something with the toes and fingers but I’m not sure what yet.

So why am I showing all this off now if it’s not even close to done? I still need to value, colour and texture this bad boy! The entire image should have been portfolio ready a week ago! But now I don’t know if this is the character I want to do. Adrian did the critique on Wednesday of the version I had finished that day. We explored a lot of neat ideas with him like making him more evil (the eyes suggest he’s bad). He could be a demon even. The cavity in his stomach could be a monster mouth or something. I quickly experimented with giving him mammoth tusks like this is a giant prehistoric rabbit. I just don’t know now.

I think I’ll finish the wood guy (despite not knowing what to put inside him) since I’m this far into it. I still have a whole cityscape to do too and I need SO MUCH PRACTICE WITH CITYSCAPES.

I should get back to work since I just spent 22 minutes typing this out. Finished version coming soon.

Michael