Finished Bird Rig

Here are some images of the finished bird rig Wes has been working on.

I Broke Him

I have been having issues with my elephant rig as you can see below.




It was a spine issue that I used my problem solving skills and Charlotte resources to fix :) Below is a beautiful picture of my Elephants baby blues. I plan to have Dejaun tweak them so that the pupil is a bit larger and sharper, and the iris a bit smaller.

The Bird is Getting Fuzzed

Here are pictures of Dejaun's textures for the bird. They are not finished yet but I love seeing the bird with color and cute and fuzzy! He is going to adjust the blues so they aren't so different and the beak is more of a darker orange but the light is kind of washing it out.

Some Elephant Expressions

I completed the skinning with some difficulty. This is only my second time skinning and first time making it actually function! I've also finished up all of the blend shapes for the Elephants expressions. Here are some simple ones.

Elephant Rig Completed!

I finished up the elephant rig today and am ready to start skinning!

Elephant Rig

Here is where I am at with the elephant rig. I had to put it on hold for a bit to get the animatic squared away. I will be posting that soon.

The Bird Rig

I have my friend Wes Adams working on the bird rig. Here is where he is at with that.

Bird Model and More Good News!

Here is the finished bird model! I really like how he turned out!

The other good news is that I found a composer that is very excited to be working with me on my film!

Starting to Rig

I'm not very good at rigging so this is quite a process. Thank you digital tutors for walking me through this. Here is what I have so far. I've been focusing on the legs and set up the Ik's for them.

I was also excited to show the nose when it lays flat. I did this using the soft mod tool.

More on the Bird Model

I added some more to the bird model. I think I have the face done just a matter of finishing up the wings, feet, and tail.

Fixing Up the Characters

I tweaked the elephant a bit more and have been working on the bird character.


A bit of size comparison :D

Elephant Texture

Dejaun knocked this out pretty quick for me. I think it turned out great and looks really nice in the light!

Time For the Bird

Here is an update on the bird. Worked on his face a bit.

The Elephant

Here he stands finished in all of his glory :) Ready to be rigged so I can debug/ fix the mesh as needed.

More Elephant Goodness

I've been focusing a lot on the head this past week. I've still got a bit of tweaking to do but overall pretty happy! For the ear, I plan to use it as a cloth with pins :) That's why it looks weird.

Beginnings of the Bird Turn Around

Here are some sketches from the lovely Ms. Arnett. We met to discuss in more detail the bird shapes and break downs and here is the result. Plan to be getting the cleaned up turn arounds soon.

Basic Bird Shapes Here

I took the basic sketch for the bird character and worked out the basic shapes for him. Heres what he looks like so far for your viewing pleasure.

The Elephant en 3D

This is the elephant character in 3D just going over the basic shapes. It was very helpful to do this and see what it looks like in 3D space. It helped me to see some changes that I needed to make. (this was done prior to Sam's turn arounds).

Elephant Turns Are here :)

Sam made these beautiful illustrations for me to make the Elephant 3 dimensional!

Character Designs

Here are the sketches and designs that I have compiled so far. These are workings from the past weeks to the present.

This first set is back when the story involved a goose. Very crude rough sketches.

This set comes from the new (actual) story where I decided to go with a kiwi-like bird. It's smaller and will work better for the confined environment.



I took my ideas and sketches to Sam Arnett who has been working on my character designs. She helped me spruce them up and bring them to life.

We found the pieces we liked and turned them into these two characters. I like using the two contrasting colors blue and orange (complimentaries) for them to play on their differences. I think they turned out really cute! Good job Sam!!
This is the beginning of the turn around for the elephant. The final to be coming soon :)