Diesel Update #11; New Loader Robot side view

This is the third robot. Made partly from other robots bits, this one started as a rig, to which I am attaching the geometry.

It has two pairs of arms, but the smaller ones are barely visible as they are unfinished.

Should be fun to animate.

Drawing at Conwy Castle, April 2013

I was lucky enough to get a couple of hours in Conwy in North Wales, at the weekend. This is a fairly unique town; still nestled within the outer walls of the castle. The town has never really strayed beyond this boundary which gives it a fantastic atmosphere.

The first drawing is from outside the walls, looking up at the highest tower. The second is the view from within the tower, with the castle itself just visible in the distance to the left.

Diesel update #10

Rigging begins for the Stalker robot.

Diesel_update_#9

This should be the final head design for Diesel. The eye has a rotating focus ring, and the outer circular guard is split in to four independent pieces. This is so that I can get some facial expressions without him actually having a face in the traditional sense.

The arms sprouting out of his back look like guns, but aren't. You will have to wait to see what they are really for.

They will magically fold out of two lockers on his back, very Chuck Jones.

I grouped the geometry so that I could pose him prior to rigging. This brought up a number of problem areas; so more tweaking. This also applied to the welding robot, now referred to a Stalker.

The Stalker had very noticeable cables for a while.  I felt that they took something away from his deliberatley angular styling and poses, generally upsetting the shape hierarchy, so I ditched them.

 

I have started adding some much subtler cabling detail to Diesel, they add detail and functionality without effecting his shape hierarchy.

 

This is the first time that I have applied a material to Diesel. I am torn between detailed worn-robot textures (time consuming) or black-&-white simplicity (below, achievable). I think I know which way that will end up going.

Jabberwocky in Stop Motion at Staffordshire University Stop Motion Animation & Puppet Making degree course.

These are some stills from the student short film version of Jabberwocky; currently being filmed by the level 5 Stop motion Animation students.

The trench was built in forced perspective to create depth. The. Trench is only a couple of feet deep, but looks much longer.

This is the young soldier who is the hero. The Vorple sword is now a rifle with a bayonet fixed to the end.

The no-mans-land set starts off as an eerie white, in stark contrast to the muddy look of the trench scenes.

I decided to make the Jabberwocky myself, as the students had plenty to do with the two sets and the soldier puppets.

The Jabberwocky was just going to be a cross bred world war 1/2 tank, but it developed into a machine that transforms as it rolls towards; sprouting four legs to walk on.

Initially it would have looked too narrow if I had stuck to the original designs, so I made it wider on Photoshop.

The tank is very light weight. It is mostly made from hard foam and foam board with slim wood supports.

Since the tank is quite complex there is only one size. Originally it was going into two different scale sets. Now it will be filmed against blue screen for all of its shots.

B Movie update

Here are some more images for my B-Movie film. These are rough sculpts of one of the human types that will be made in Maya. Unlike Super Hands (who, incidentally, is now called 'Diesel') they start life as physical sculptures.

I am sculpting them using aluminum wire armatures and New Plaste clay. When complete they will be scanned with a laser to turn them into detailed files that I can work with in Maya.

Each human character has a normal state, and an emaciated, zombie like, condition. To save on sculpting time I am doing this as a single sculpt, then duplicating each side to make whole figures. See the Photoshopped images at the bottom for an idea of how they will look (need wider hips on the zombie type though).

 This is supposed to be a mechanic / workman type. The kind of guy usually seen flying backwards over some barrels in a James Bond film as the secret base blows up at the end...

 And this is the basis of his less-than-healthy counterpart...

There will be a female version, also male and female business types in suits.

Diesel the Robot is changing slightly. The main difference is his head, which has to be more expressive; still working on that. Plus his head has to have more of a non-symmetrical, almost home made look compared to the rest of his body.

 I have deliberately gone for a cine-camera look to the head, with the eyes looking like the turret mounted lenses on the front of my Dads clockwork powered Viscount Double 8mm cine camera. That camera, somewhat surprisingly, was able to take single frames, ideal for a young animator.

I will post more work as and when it happens.