After getting feedback on our first animating assets video I added on an extra asset. I still plan to make more adjustments to it once I get feedback on this one.
Aine McKinney
Design Student
Author Archives: ainemckinney
adding bones and skinning
This was my first time adding bones and skinning a character. I thought adding the bones were easy enough but found difficulty when I skinned the character. Some vertexes were attached to parts of the character they weren’t supposed to but I couldn’t find the problem. When I began to animate the character with CAT motion the shape of my model changed at parts but I’m not sure why.
Details and unwrapping
Once I had the majority of my character modelled it was time to add in the details and accessories. I modelled the shoes next and attempted to make the light section of the face out of a plane. I found it very difficult so had to try and find a different way to do it. I also added the gloves and bow. Once I had the character completely built it was time to unwrap it. After unwrapping I could get a real feel for how my character was going to look. When I learnt how to unwrap I found it was a really simple thing to make such a difference. While I was unwrapping I found making the lighter part of the face on the head material was the easiest way to get the shape I wanted.
Colouring and adding a head
Before I work on the head again I decided to add some colours to the parts of the model I have to get more of a feel for what the character looks like. Instead of having a plain body I added a top and the puffy sleeves.
I tried to make the head out of a sphere as it seemed the most logical way to go. First I tried to extrude the ears from the sphere and found it difficult so I made the ears separate and attached them to the sphere. Once I was happy with that I modelled the nose/mouth from the sphere by moving vertexes about until I was happy with the shape.
Start of modelling
To start off my Minnie mouse model I used a box. By adding segments to separate the body I would be able to get the shape I want and make the arms and legs later. Once I was happy enough with the torso shape I extruded polygons to make an arm, a leg and the neck. By adding a symmetry modifier it meant I only had to model one half of the body. During the modelling process I added a turbo smooth modifier and toggled it on and off to see what parts of the body needed work. I attempted to extrude the head from the body but I’m not happy with the shape and I’m finding it difficult to get the shape I want so I will have to try getting it a different way.
Change of plans
After unpredictable issues occurring, I was pushed back in my project and had a very limited time to finish the work so I decided to change the brief that I originally chose. The first brief would have taken too much time to get right so I went with turning a 2D character 3D instead. For this brief I choose Minnie Mouse. A very well-known character with iconic colouring and design.
To begin with I researched her. I looked at the shape, how she moved and what she wore. When looking at her shape I tried to picture it simplified. The basis of Minnie mouse is very simple so there wasn’t must research I could do on after a while. So I focused more on her outfits and decided on what colour scheme I think she is most known for, which is the red and white polka dots.
Due to lack of time I didn’t want sketch a character that has already been drawn numerous amounts of time. So instead I drew out a simplified version of how I see Minnie mouse being made up.
New project
After looking at the different options for this brief I think the ‘character of you’ would be the most interesting. Being able to add in little quirky details to make it personal would be really interesting. To start this project off I thought I’d see how I’d get on with modelling a girl figure.
Photoshoot
As I mentioned in my previous project, fashion photography is something I’m passionate about so I took some photos whilst filming.
Final Film
When filming I couldn’t do the film noir lighting I wanted with the patterned shadows over the face so I had to use a light with no shadow filter instead. In the end I think it worked well with the overall film.
I ended up leaving out the glass smashing scene I filmed because the quality didn’t turn out that good and it took away from the film.
Aine McKinney 