Go Go Gadget Head Turnaround & Production Blog!

I'm finally relatively happy with the head model for our film. My main production role for the past couple of months has been the modelling, texturing and blendshapes of the character. We're scheduled to start the body any day now, just waiting on the final designs from our ever talented pre production artist Lynsey, who's done a stand up job of helping us out with the 2D side of things. Then I've got the blendshapes to sort out, which are essentially the character's expressions for the non-animation folks. Luckily, we've got a Masters student on board to do the rigging for us, which will be a great help... so all in all it's coming together rather smoothly. 

You can check out the 3D model below, best viewed in full HD here.

There's still some tweaking required, and we've been given some useful feedback which we'll look into if time allows, but chances are it's not going to change too drastically from here on out.  

In other news, we've finally uploaded a team production blog which we'll be updating regularly with our progress. You can find the current animatic on there too for those of you who've not had a chance to see the story yet. For those of you who have, it's changed a lot over the past 4 months so if you could check it out and give us your feedback that would be cool.

Sláinte,

Kieran.

EDIT: Here's some wireframes as requested by Mr Boyd, be gentle.

Summertastic.

Salutations! It's been a shamefully long time since my last blog post, I'd like to say it's because I've been too busy partying with salty wenches and copious quantities of alcohol, but alas... my summer girl has been the ever-angsty heartbreaker that is Autodesk Maya. 

In an effort to make a super-badass degree film, the motley crew that is Team Ticked Off have spent the entire summer locked away in the animation studio to get a head start on production. We've paid for it with some loss of sanity and considerable weight gain. The good news is, we've made a lot of progress and are well into the swing of things! We've got our first peer review on Monday, so expect to see a production blog complete with our work so far coming next week. 

That said, it's been a summer of two extremes. There were a couple of small but epic adventures to be had, primarily blindly heading out on a 212 mile trek across Scotland in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. Myself and 5 other equally unprepared but determined comrades (including fellow animigo and Heavy Sprinkle Tom Paxton) raised something around the £3,500 mark in donations. I genuinely can't really explain the hardships and do them justice, but suffice to say it was fucking difficult. There was blood, blisters and broken feet (seriously...) beyond belief, but we all made it to the finish line fashionably late. There are a couple of snaps below, but you can view the entire set here.

The other big adventure was cycling up the French Alps and seeing Le Tour De France with my old man, which was fantastic. I've never been to the Alps before and I was absolutely blown away, my definition of mountains was promptly rewritten. We spent the week hanging with half a million other cyclists powering up some colossal peaks and then cruising along velvet roads at 45mph during the sweeping downhill descents. Check out the relatively small set here.

In other news, I'm still continuing my Picture A Day Project and I'm somewhere around photo number 600. I doubt this year will be as exciting as the last, purely due to the amount of time I'm going to be locked away in the studio, but I'll keep going with it regardless. It'll be great to document my slow descent into complete and utter madness, maybe they'll show it as some sort of PSA about the dangers of studying animation. I don't think I ever posted the finished video of last year on here, check it out below. 

The amount of history captured in a single year boggles my mind, it's interesting to see how much my life has changed in different ways. I still watch it all the time.  

So that's pretty much my long overdue update, like I said earlier... there'll be a lot more project related posts to come so stay tuned. 

Sláinte,

Kieran.