1-28-07

Animatic:

Play

Notes from class on storyboards:

It was suggested that the Chihuahua catch glimpses of the Yorkie as he is led out of the store. I tried putting her in the animatic, but his actions were funnier without it. It's also sadder at the end when he is tied to the parking meter if he has not seen the Yorkie again.

I've finished the Chihuahua, click for a 360°:

Play

I'm going to try to do his short fur as a bump map, so all his vertices are laid out nicely. I bulged out the area around his eyes, because Chihuahua's don't really have eyelids. They just scrunch up they flesh around their eyes.

And started the Yorkie's face. Without the fur, Yorkie's actually look just like Chihuahuas, but I'm going to make her resemble her furred shape more. I'm going to modify the Chihuahua's body for her.

1-20-07

Storyboards, from the top down:

Character Design:

And the body looks like this:

1-14-07

So I went to the Museum of the Moving Image's Best of Stash screening, and was struck by the simple graphic design of so many of the videos. They also had this:

"The Little Fella" by AMD and Tokyo Plastic

http://www.tokyoplastic.com/JD.html

I felt that the design I had now was too realistic and not reflective enough of the Chihuahua's character (looser Chihuahua). So I made file Chi4:

Changes were: Uglier, smaller snout and jaw, bigger head. Bonier and curvier overall. I worked on the definition of the lip:

So now there's a flap to go over the teeth.

Things to fix: He's still too cute + different from the side, I need to change the back of his head. Pointier perhaps? And a longer snout? The ears need to curve over the head. The corner of the mouth puckers when I smooth it.

Things to remember: when defining the fold and corner of the mouth, I only used one ring. Then I tried to take a pre-existing ring and use it for the extrusion of the lip, but ran into problems when that particular ring continued on to the back of the skull. Next time I have to build TWO rings close to each other, and use them both to define the edge of the lips.

1-11-07

Kept working on Chihuahua, made file Chi3:

Changes were: shortened snout, created ears, added ridges to top of head, defined end of upper jaw, straightened lower jaw. Made eyes larger. Made more of a doggie nose.

Things to fix: Made separation between nose and muzzle more clear. Extend ridges to top of skull so they don't look like really huge eyebrows. Soften inner edge of ear flap. Randomize inner ear surface more.

Tomorow: the body!

1-9-07

So with one week left, I have actually started modeling. I finished Stop Staring yesterday and am fully prepared!

Images I'm working from:

Created two versions of the Chihuahua, second version seen below:

Things to fix:Smaller nose, straighten lower jaw. Make more cartoony? Make profile stronger, cuter. Elongate the head and shorten the snout. Emphasize brow.

Things to remember: Next time not so complicated! And to restart the computer instead of wondering why sculpt geometry doesn't work. Real time mirror half created by going to duplicate special and scaling it to -1 in x. Snap points to 0 in x by selecting the points and changing their value in the component editor.