Rationale

This is the first time I've worked with 3D animation, and I found it to be quite difficult. I especially found Maya to be a very frustrating and stressful program but again I have never used it before. Using it was very hard for me and I found myself losing interest. However the start of the project was very interesting and fun. I liked the iconic clips I had to choose from, it was a tough decision for me because I really enjoyed nearly all the videos but in the end I chose the iconic "Here's Johnny" scene from "The Shining". When I started creating my character for the project, I was told to make a simple character so I was able to work with Maya more easily. 

My first idea was to design my character as an anime style character but I had to remember to keep it not too complex. Though i could have gone with a more simple anime style, I chose to draw in a "cartoon" style. I experimented with different shapes until I was finally happy. 

My character was actually one of the first doodles I drew before making the other ones, as can be seen in the first photo on the bottom left hand corner. I liked the way he turned out, though it did take me a while to come up with him because I had trouble deciding which genre my animation would be.

Once his colouring was done it was time to move on to story boarding.

Now I was not very impressed with my storyboard, I felt that I left details out and I'm sure it was quite hard for viewers to tell what was happening in the background.

When the 3D work started I felt completely lost, remembering all the different tools and buttons I had to use to create this character was a bit overwhelming and I started to get frustrated with my work and slack off, which was a very poor move. When my character was finally created I had to laugh at how funny he looked, he kinda reminded me of Marty McFly, especially with that hair. Even though I thought his design was very toned down, it turns out it really wasn't. It was difficult creating the spikes in his hair, so his hair had to be simplified and then duplicated.

Changing from 2D to 3D was a lot harder than I expected, I had a lot of trouble with this project and that led me to get very frustrated and stressed out, this led me to being very slack with my work. I feel very ashamed of my lack of work and feel I could have done so much more. I found 2D a lot more easier and much prefer using flash. I' am extremely unhappy with my final work, I pictured everything a lot better with more sound, background, props and lighting. I completely rushed everything all the way through to the deadline and feel absolutely embarrassed. However through this experience has made me realise that I need to put the hard work and effort into my next work and I will a much better job.

Final video......

Shamefully this is my final video.....I'm very embarrassed about it, so much more could've been done and I am so ashamed.......

My awkward step blocking

What the title says.....the video doesn't make sense right now but when its all done it......no it will probably still not make any sense

Shot staging

My really boring shot staging

Rigged model

Here is my first rigged character

Still skinning the head

My file crashed on me but luckily i saved the file at the right time so nothing terrible happened and I'm still skinning the head.

Skinning the head

I've skinned his right shoulder and wrist and now skinning his head, going fine but there is this grey part that will not go away, it's really bugging me cause it stays in place when i move his head so it looks like some weird worm or something coming out of is skull every time he moves so......working on that right now.....T_T

Stupid Skinning

It took about four goes until I could actually start skinning because the stupid controls weren't moving with his wrist, took two more goes until it actually started to work.

Fixing the shoulder

Started the skinning but something weird happened and discovered that I was a bigger idiot and didn't merge his vertices together so there were a few holes in his armpits and a vertex that wasn't even joined to anything, had to cut out holes so it could actually be joined and fixed the rest so its all good.

More expressions

These were the final blend shapes, i kinda like how they turned out but next time i'll make sure not to stick his teeth together. (I have no idea how i did that X(. 

Fixing his mouth

This where I had a problem making his mouth open so I could animate him talking, the end blend shape wasn't affecting the dummy, I took a closer look and found out that his teeth were stuck together.

Very embarrassing and very stupid on my behalf, so I tried to fix it with some help form others and the his mouth turned out like this..

Did this with both the dummy and master and made duplicates buuuuuuuuuut.....they don't work when the blend shapes are made so i started the blend shapes again. So now his mouth doesn't open but i worked with it.

More blend shapes

Here are some more blend shapes, Grace helped me decide what kind of expressions my model should make. Here we have blinky, kawaii, frowny and the last one i was still working on.

Blend shapes

My first blend shape, the face to the right is supposed to be him blinking/closing his eyes but he kinda looks really sleazy O_O. But I'm happy.

Fixing the edge loops

Think something was wrong with the edge loops, had no idea what the heck was going on, Grace had to come help me fix it, twas very confusing but it all worked out in the end.

Actually these are the pole vectors and the others were IK

I actually can't remember what happened here but the file said i got rid of the ik handles in his arm and then added pole vectors??? So i guess the last two posts were actually ik handles...  ._. I'm gonna say THESE are pole vectors.

Pole Vectors

.......what the title says. Pretty easy to make.

Locators

Here is my model with locators in his foot so he doesn't look like a robot when he walks, and he has some pole vectors in his legs and arms. (Shout out to Michael for helping me XD)

Joints and Controls

Very late update on work but here is my character with his joints and controls, it took forever for me to name his joints and had to get a few people help me with the controls (thank you, you know who you guys are).

Face second process

Gave my character a rolled up sleeve and hand, also sharpened the bottom of his shirt.

Added mouth and teeth (special thanks to Ethan for showing me how to do it) hes starting to look more creepier. :)

Face process

Added eye and ear to the face, trying to work on the mouth and the bags under his eyes.

Second shoe process

Done some shaping to the shoe it doesn't look like a tissue box anymore.

Leg second progress

Don't know if its hard to tell but the leg is more square than round, just how I wanted it. Again nothing fancy though he is kinda a simple character....(feel kinda useless that that's all I was able to accomplish......However!! I' am now working on his shoe!!

Though it does look like a tissue box on his foot right now.......but I'm getting there!! Also forgot to mention that is shoulder is sharper that it was before (Special thanks to Captain for showing me how to do that!!!)

Leg process

Late submission, actually made this a week ago but here is my character's leg, nothing fancy. It is quite round, need to make it more square-ish.

Character Modeling

JUST STARTED my character.......only have half a face and a very weird body

 but.......working on it!!! 

Prop Model turnaround

Turntable for my prop, don't have light yet....

Prop Model

Late submission but here is my prop for Johnny.....it's a suitcase.

Added colour. Trying to make it look like leather. (Colour is black.....doesn't look like it but it's there)

Storyboard

Colour concepts and texture swatches

I experimented with simple colours at first then added stripes and an ombre design to make him look more stylish. On the right hand side are some sketches of objects that will be featured in the sequence. One is his suitcase that he takes all the time to work and the other is his front door that he will smash through.                                                                                                                                                     

Expressions and Poses

Turnaround

This is Danny after a hard day at work, I made sure to make him look quite lanky and a bit dorky. I made sure to make him look disheveled and tired by giving him bags under his eyes, I also wanted him to look like he was straining to keep a smile on his face.                                                                   

Summary

Summary

This animation is comedy short about that is inspired by the "Here's Johnny" scene from   The Shinning, it is a horror film and in the "Here’s Johnny" scene, the palette of the scene has dull nude colours which makes it very ominous and chilling.

Sequence

My animation is a comedy genre short about an average guy named Johnny who tries his hardest do be positive, the scene is set in the ordinary world.

The sequence starts with Johnny walking home from a long day at work, because he is so tired he doesn't notice that he is crashing and destroying everything he walks into. It isn’t until he reaches his home that he realizes he can finally relax and see his wife. But he hasn’t exactly snapped out of his trance because he smashes his face through the front door and lovingly calls out to his wife “Here’s Johnny!”

Character profile

Johnny is an ordinary guy, he has a loving wife and a nice home. Johnny’s wife Suzie is a proud self-employed baker and runs her own little cake shop in their small town that she absolutely loves. However, Johnny works at an insurance company, and finds being cramped in a small cubicle while sorting through a bunch of paper work extremely boring but tries to stay positive for his wife’s sake. Sometimes Johnny tries too hard to keep his boss and coworkers happy which leaves him very drained on the inside but at the end of the day he is just glad to be home with his loving wife.

Concept Development

Experimenting with different shapes of the head, and wanting to keep the style simple and not too complex. At first I wanted the character to be quite old but thought making him in his late 20's a better choice. I didn't want him to appear too hideous or ugly otherwise he would have looked like he belonged in the horror genre instead of comedy.


The drawing below shows more character sketches but I felt that the first pose did not suit                                                                                       his personality or character and the second                                                                                               looked too much like a pre-teen.                                                             

Visual Research