Tracking Test

This was an exercise to help me understand tracking. I used MatchMover for the tracking, then put it into Maya to make the geometry, set up some lights and render it for very basic compositing in After Effects.

I was hoping I would be able to use this for my showreel, but sadly there are lots of mistakes. Even so, I did gain an understanding of the tracking pipeline.

Bear House Diner Logo Design

I have just submitted a logo and branding for an eatery called "Bear House Diner". I found out about this through a website called concept cupboard. Basically clients submit their brief to the site with a budget and deadline, and anyone who wants to get the project submits their idea. This has been my first brief using concept cupboard so I'm not entirely sure how well the whole thing works, but I guess I'll find out in due course.

Basically, the brief was to design a logo and colour scheme for the "Bear House Diner", ideally incorporating a bear paw motif to be used on interior decorations.

 some of the initial sketches

logo development

logo design simple

logo design coloured

I submitted a couple of variations on the same bear silhouette and font as I imagine the diner would want to use slight variations depending on the media they are branding (menus, signage, flyers etc.).

Understanding Bereavement (Test)

This is a test for a series of animations concerning mental health and emotional well being aimed at children. The animation is based on a comic strip produced by Liquid Designs for SMILE (Supporting Minds In a Learning Environment).                                                                                                 

Bereavement Intro

I took me about 12 hours to do in total (including storyboarding, getting refrence material and recording sound).

Cute Monster 2.0 Textured

After a week of mainly being ill, I have finnished texturing Alek. I've still not quite got to grips with normal map transfers (see below) but I'm liking how the diffuse and specular have turned out.

 high and low poly versions of Alek the 'Cute Monster'

I think he is ready to be left for a bit untill I come back and animate him. I was really struggling with having "Cute Monster" hanging over me. Trying to finnish a character that I was never particularly happy with was difficult, but I think I actually like Alek now.


And below is the result of high poly normals transferred onto the low poly mesh, I am not entirely sure why is looks so awful, but I think I need to build up my confidence in areas of animation that I am actually good at before I come back to figuring out high to low poly normal maps. Or hopefully someone will just show me how to do it.

normal maps transfer failure

Return to Cute Monster 2.0

Well, I got pretty sick of this character after having lots of problems with its normals. But after a break, and realising how much I need to learn to texture properly, I gave it another go. And this time, instead of using Photoshop, I got myself some Mudbox! I'm really enjoying being able to paint directly onto the model, although my poor old computer finds it hard to deal with the program, so I often have to paint blind and wait for my computer to catch up. So after modifying the topology slightly, re-mapping the UV's  and a couple of quick colour scheme sketches, here is what I have.

  UV map

                  

the centre colour scheme is my favourie, so thats the one I'm going to work on tomorrow

Side-Scrolling Racer Mockup

So these are 2 of my ideas for the art style for a sidescrolling racing game.They were part of a pitch to be the artist for a game someone had already created the mechanics for. I didn't get the job but I kinda like these ideas.

mountainous desert setting, character is a desert rabbit

circus with an elephant riding a bike

 

penny farthing racer

Spink & Ray

Well, Spinks a cat and he started existing a couple of weeks ago when I was sketching a card for my girlfriend.

Spink & friends

I then drew him onto card, coloured, and cut him out. I'm not sure why I enjoy cutting characers out from card so much, I guess its something about being able to give the character physical shape which brings it to life a little bit more. This lil' feller is presently sitting on my computer.

 Spink cut-out

As I fairly recently purchsed a wacom bamboo, I thought I'd make good use of it and give Spink and his new friend Ray some colour. I deffinitely have a lot to learn about digital painting, but I like how it turned out. The font used is antelope h.

Spink the cat & Ray the bird