Wednesday 19 February 2014

Learning to Model all over again



The secret to an animators success (unless you are a university prodigy) is to get yourself noticed but with the same rigs doing to rounds on the circuit the best way to get noticed is to build your own unique characters and ideally create a short that will entertain people
That’s what I’ve set out to do.
I have lots of ideas, too many sometimes, but I’ve always needed to rely on someone else to build them before I can animate them so I’ve decided to take the initiative and create my own characters.
Now I am definitely not a modeller. I spent a week creating characters in university and I took to it like a ton of bricks to water. Since then I have managed to feel pretty at home in Maya so I’m excited to give it another shot.
The modelling part I’ve always enjoyed. I like forming characters the same way I love playing with plasticise but the rigging and skinning have been my downfalls, but I am determined to learn.

Today is day one of modelling. I have a few tutorials that are awakening my memory at every step and its exciting to see the character I’ve imagined animating actually start to appear. I suppose the key to modelling is the same as animating. Know where you are going.
I’ve known some extremely skilled animators who can sit with a cube and add vertex’s until their model resembles something beautiful but for us newbies , I need to know my character inside and out before I start or I can stray. The best tip I can give for new modellers is grab a lump of play-doh or clay and make the shape you want in the computer. Having a 3d model in your hand really will help you to see where it is you need to get to. Drawing a turnaround is hard but stitching those drawings together can be extremely hard.
King Konglish is starting to take shape.

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