2nd Punch Bag Robot Maya build

This is the start of the second type of industrial robot in Punch Bag. This one is a welder; able to get into smaller spaces than the big heavy robot.

It s adapted from a pencil design  for a War Droid that I drew while on the train returning from last years Bristol Animation Festival (I was reading ABC Warriors from 2000ad at the time).

Obviously the weapons are being replaced with tools' etc. The polygon model is sticking pretty close to the original. I really like wanted to make that odd spine joint with the two pistons and hinged joints. Should be interesting rigging!

Punch Bag Mechanic / Engineer character maquette

This is the beginning of the human character, which will also be animated in Maya.

For the mechanic / engineer I have decided to create a clay maquette and scan this in to create a 3 dimensional template in Maya over which I can sculpt a polygons body.

The sculpture is supported by a square section aluminum wire frame fixed to a chip board base. The wire is held together with thin wire and two part epoxy glue.

Successive layers of New Plaste clay are built up to match the front and profile view silhouettes.

I was never too happy with the legs in the silhouette designs so I am building them up a bit in the maquette.

More soon...

Refined Maya polygon modelled Robot

Now that I have got the basic shape as I want it I have started to refine the existing geometry and add some detail.

The cables are dummy ones to see how they look.

All of the piston tubes have been improved; a third tube between the other two will allow for great extension and the tubes have had edge loops added so that I could give them ribs and dips.

Lots of the finger and thumb joints have been given raised and sunken areas to make them look like strengthened metal.

The socket in the hip area now has some raised detail.

Once I was satisfied with the shape I aligned the parts for finishing off prior to rigging. I am now attaching the sockets for the cabling that will be created using n-cloth.

First shots of 'Punch Bag' Robot

These are shots of the first Maya modelling for on of the Robots from my new film; Punch Bag.

 The joints are a mixture of ball joints, pivots and hinges. Most of the joints have pistons as their driving force, but some are missing otherwise the image becomes a little crowded.

 The cables will be created using N-cloth so that they move realistically an bounce off of the body.

 Each hand currently has nineteen pistons on it. The hands are very important as they are they primary way that the robots; which are mute, can express themselves.

The retro power packs / generators on the back, and the aerial on the front will both have 'Metropolis' like overlapping rings of energy constantly moving up and down them.

Punch Bag character designs

This is the first of a series of regular reports on my new film; Punch Bag.This is being made at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent, where I am a Senior Lecturer in Animation (Twitter: @25fpsstaffs).

It has been some time since I have made any animation of my own, I have been teaching for about five years, but prior to that I was a freelance Animator working in London and Manchester. This will be the first animation that I have made using Maya.

The designs are simple silhouettes. I have moved on from the previous Steam Punk designs but have retained a lot of the influences. There is a human engineer / mechanic, and a lot of robots.

The robot was put into Maya as an image plane and I started start sketching the shape in with polygon primitives. I will pit lots of grabs into the next post.

The human character will be sculpted in clay as a maquette first; then photographed to become a series of image planes in either Maya or Mudbox. I will probably use Maya to keep the poly-count down.

The human is very much inspired by the Team Fortress II characters...

...while the Robots are all me.

The 'look' of the whole thing will be very like a Mike Mignola comic; BPRD and Hellboy are my inspiration...

 ...Toon Rendered to create lots of flat colour, with large areas of dark shadow; very Film Noir.

More soon...

Staffordshire University Degree Shown 2012 Opens

After one hell of a full-on week, the 2012 Staffordshire University Animation Awards Degree Show opened on Friday 15th June, and it looks great. This year we have three Awards showing work; BA (Hons) Animation, BA (Hons) Stop Motion Animation, and BA (Hons) 3D Character Animation.

As a front piece the students have drawn a large mural of all the characters from their final films on the wall outside. Sadly this wall will be demolished as soon as the show is over, to make way for the worlds biggest corridor.

The opening was busy and we saw a few old faces.

Just down from the Degree show is  Ade Tooth's Pop-up comic shop; selling comics created by level one BA (Hons) Cartoon & Comics Arts students.

More photos to come of puppets, after I take them...