Technical Exercises: Maya Dice

It's been just over two weeks now since I've started using Maya...well properly anyway. I don't think starting it up months before and just staring at the interface in confusion then pressing a few buttons and things whizzing across the screen in mayhem counts as using it. Especially after the excuse I had of not daring opening it again of, it's evil it's gonna make my computer go bang! Rest assured fellow Maya noobs it isn't!

I am gradually grasping the tools and the shortcuts, think I'll have to make a list of them for myself because they go out of my head at the worst of times. I just need to practise practise practise to go up a level and gain confidence in this strange button world.



Well here are some dice for starters! Hardest thing to get right was the lighting, took me ages to stop it casting most of each die into shadow. Think I'll try to make the lighting a bit brighter if I get time because it's a bit hard to see now.

Online Greenlight Review

OGR

Links to additional unit relevant work

Research
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Research

Anatomy Studies
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Anatomy%20Studies

Film reviews
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Film%20Reviews

Life Drawing
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Life%20Drawing

Technical Exercises (Maya, Photoshop)
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Photoshop
http://emma-foster.blogspot.com/search/label/Maya

Thumbnails...yes more!



With these thumbnails I took into consideration something my creative partner had said about maybe using the Komondor's fur as a part clothing element like in tribal history. I did come out with some strange looking results but think I should take this a bit further to see if I can make anything from it. What he said actually reminded me of this digital painting by Atomhawk's Charlie Bowater.

Howl by `charlie140588 on deviantART

It seems to have some animal instinct and danger about it; the unusually yellow eyes and feathers sticking out of her hair give the sense that she just came charging out of the woods but there is also a tribal aura about her.

I also developed how the hands and feet of the Komondor and myself will combine in transformation to create a happy medium. There are some partly standing poses as well because I wanted to experiment the stance after feeling a complete standing pose would inhibit the animal element. One of them looks rather Centaur like which isn't somewhere I should go because it doesn't seem very original.

More thumbnails: Photoshop week 2

I have now fleshed out the skeletal beings I created. I wasn't sure at first how to approach this, I think I was scared that I would muck them up and they would lose half the shape but after some advice from Photoshop Phil I got stuck in and here we are.

I tried to make them all quite different such as, #10 has a lot of long hair which does express the Komondor's coat but also represents my own hair. I thought I should incorporate these two features together so that I produce a characteristic mixture from both. I even added a few plaits as recently I have a thing about plaiting my hair. I didn't take the hair to the ground because I don't want my hybrid to be too Komondor and whenever I let the hair reach the ground this seems to happen. I also gave it quite narrow legs with a mixture of paw and fingers to show this isn't pure dog.

With #11 I used the Jim Skull link that Phil gave me as influence. I liked how parts hung off the skulls while other parts were tightly wound so I gave this hybrid idea the curved form of the human rather than the bulky hardly viewable form of the Komondor with skin tight hair as well as loose flowing tendril types.

#12 was an experimentation with how much of the Komondor's coat I could lose to show a hybrid species. I'm not as happy with this because it doesn't seem to flow and the big chunks missing just look messy. I think an approach of tight and loose hair together may work better.



Komondor research (3)

After visiting Anifest yesterday and getting lots of ideas of how I could next approach my hybridisation I went in search for some videos that showed me how Komondorok moved as pictures can only tell us so much. It was especially interesting to see that when this dog lifts up its tail its coat goes with it and hangs like separate long strands on a scarf. This could lead to an unusual combination on my arms/legs of the hybrid depending on the stance it takes.

At Canterbury Anifest

I had never been to an 'animation festival' before so was really keen to check this out. This was put even higher on my priorities when I read the words 'Harry Potter' and 'dragon'. I'm sure I wasn't the only one this summer sat in the cinema munch goodies forgotten while I practically clambered over the seats for a closer look and drooled over that dragon bursting out of Gringotts. Then days on end afterwards wishing dragons actually existed because...I wanted one!

Along with other extremely excitable names including Aardman being there I decided to have a look.

Well I won't regret it!

Of course I attended the brilliantly inspiring 'Animating the Dragon' talk and afterwards came out buzzing with ideas for my hybrid. Yes I know a dragon didn't get into the teleportation pod with me, I sure would have noticed that! It doesn't matter though because everything that Samy Fecih talked about can be applied to creating any character. His mention of using dogs to inspire him for his dragon was an added bonus. It allowed me to see how the dog (as well as other animals) show their emotions through their posture so this is definately something I want to consider for my development. How do I convey my emotion at being transformed into my final piece?

It was a big shame I didn't get to see more that was there but next time I will definately try!

Film Review: The Company of Wolves (1984)

Film Review: The Company of Wolves (1984)