cyborgGirl takedown

Around mid-2020 when The Last of Us II was released, I was all about it. I was a big fan of the first one. Though I played only once…the heaviness of the story was too much for me to go another round. I loved everything about it: from storytelling to graphics, to animation ( I loved the details of the animation..insane!!!) I was inspired by one of Abby takedown animation where she kicks the enemy in the knee and then knocks them out with one punch. It was a finisher move. As usual, having daytime work, I don’t have a lot of time but I loved being inspired and continuing my motto of:” If you have an idea, make it happen!” This motto was a new motto I started to embrace this year. I believed that no matter what stage you can bring your idea to life, as long as you do it, you will learn something and advance a little bit forward…even if it’s just one tiny step at a time. I picked this particular takedown for another reason, it was a one-two punch that would require less time compared to something more complicated. This was an attempt to animate two characters in a scene with a few learning goals in mind and I wanted something I can do in a couple of weeks out of my own free time.

I started blocking in and seeing how the silhouette was reading. Were my poses clear? were the actions make sense? etc…

The cyborg rig was another rig from Kiel Figgins. Originally she was mostly nude with cyborg limbs. This was an older rig and I thought that the nude part was unnecessary. I made a color change to make it look a bit more like black spandex. The enemy rig was called Ninja rig from Built by Colossus. It was a free rig that I wanted to try out. It’s always fun to discover new rig and mess around with them to see how well they deform. There are many great one these days.

I started to mess around with camera animation. I was never properly trained with camera work…more reason to give it a try. I have plan to learn more about cameras but haven’t really had the time to. There are so many priorities, more important stuff to learn/train at the moment. The goal is to produce a couple of decent demo reel at the end of the year. I have been working toward that goal during off-hours.

Coming back to the shot I have gotten to spline in July with fresh eyes helped me see things I missed previously. Part of me wants to expand, making the takedown a bit more interesting with a couple of different actions but perhaps I will do that separately apart from this one-two takedown. For now, I’ll continue to get this to a polish state.

Sheik ASL

I wanted to express my support toward news during mid-June this year but I didn’t have good words for it. I thought of using ASL to expressed my feelings. It was an opportunity to learn more about ASL as I always loved and enjoyed seeing video games or TV shows representing these amazing skills of communication. I was inspired when seeing Quill from the VR game Moss who was animated by the awesome and amazing animator Richard Lico. In The Dragon Prince animated show on NetFlix, Amaya, the prince’s warrior Aunt was using sign language to communicate. I loved her character. It was very powerful.
This was my very first attempt to animate sign language. As usual, I did not have the time to carry it over to polish but hoping to spend that time working more into making this looking better toward the end of the year.

At present time, I’m seeing a lot of representation of ASL on the internet. From another wonderful animator to video game like the new Spiderman: Miles Morales. I hope to see more of this kind of representation in the future.

Sheik intro

The talented Shayleen Hulbert was making a model to be rigged by the amazing Perry Leijten. I asked to be part of the rig tester and I was accepted to be part of this awesome process. During the testing phase toward the end of the project. I blocked out this animation with a mindset of what can I do to stretch out his limps and then crunched them up to see if there are things that will break. I was happy with the blocking and decided to come back to it later. Now that Hades was shipped, I have some time to continue to work on this to bring it into my personal demo reel toward the end of the year.

Blizzard intro challenge attemp

About two weeks to the end of May, I decided to “try” to do the AnimChallenge which was a short six seconds of Blizzard-like highlight intro animation video. The free rig was provided by Agora. Rigged by the great Kiel Figgins. The model of Symmetro was created by Tim Oliver Haag.
I thought it would be interesting to create a grappling component to add into the rig. However, I did not do a good job with the rope rig, I didn’t have time to experiment either so I used it anyway.

Creating art and animation after work hours can be tough and exhausting at times. I think that no matter what stage your own exploration or learning projects are, they are still relevant and are important to your growth. Although the risk of putting your work out in the world whether if they are finish yet or not can be negative because they can be seen by potential employers who may not have time to read your explanation of stage they’re in. Also continuously posting work in progress can be as negative as well if you never post finished polish work. At least these are what’s going on in my mind when I decide to post something online.

I recently looking into the working file of this animation again with the goal of continuing to work on it as it has some potential, it could go into my personal demo reel. I saw so many issues made in May. In particular, the spine was quite stiff and poses were not so great. Overall things were moving too fast. I need to break it up further. Previously I tried to squeeze everything into 6 seconds which was part of the challenge but if one can not understand what’s going on, it would not be a good video regardless.

I was happy to see all of these issues, it meant that I grew since May. My skills had leveled up. That old yearning and wishing to have more time in a day, more energy to work on my animation skills comes again and again. Animation sure is tough. It is a marathon after all. It is so satisfying when you get a bit more stamina, a bit more knowledge, and a bit more skillful each time I do an animation project whether for fun or for work.

Modified eyeball

In May, Kiel Figgins released two new amazing character rigs: Nora and pet. I love the appeal of the characters but I thought to have a little fun with the pet rig. In particular, I thought of having an eyeball could help the pet to be a bit more expressive. With respect to the modeler and Kiel Figgins, this was just my own personal exploration.

I made a quick animation to show the eye rig modification for my own amusement. Having the eye gave the pet a bit more expression that I thought brought a bit more personality into him or her.

Glitch Techs' fan art experiment

Glitch Techs was a new animated show on NetFlix back in February 2020. I fell in love with the energy and the characters in the show. It was all about video games, imagination, adventures, teenage shenanigan with heart warming connection between characters. Overall, I felt like a kid again watching the show, in a good way.

Miko was one of the two main character and I thought she was such a good character. And with the goal of leveling up my 3D modeling and rigging skills. I pursued this month long experiment.

The process:

Using what I was learning from Shane Olson 3D Character Workshop, I created the initial blocking of her our of basic shapes. Then slowly I built and separated her into subtools in Zbrush. I also created her pet’s “Ally” with the goal of rigger them both.

I continued with Miko first. I learned how to Retopo in Maya. I actually enjoyed this process, however, I was still learning to make good edge loops for animation. These are not so great, specifically the face area but all part of learning.

I then created her binded skeleton. After testing out the initial binded skeleton worked well. I started creating controls for her. I was experimenting with different colors with the ctrl shape that I realized later not the usual practice in the industry for good reason. I also modeled and rigged up her guanlet which was a savy tech used to give her armor, gadget and weapon to deal with the enemy glitches. (the show was very much like a Ghost Buster feel)

I wanted to make sure that she has the ability to select different weapons using the Gaunlet and also a glitch affect would play when she does weapon selection. All of these attributes selection were added in the Channel. Because this was an experiment, I was not concern about whether or not she will work in game engine.
Aside from the gauntlet, I gave her a Cloud’s sword and his Cauldron because I was playing FF7 remake during that time. It was a great game that reminded me of my younger days playing the original. I wish it was a one complete game instead of parts…I will play the future parts anyway. I also blocked out and animation being inspired.

My old artist’s signature can still be seen in the early 2020.

I was starting to get a lot of lewd content users’ followers and attention. I had one person even asked me if the model will be released for free. Upon looking into his profile, I saw that he used 3D models he found on the internet to make porn content out of them. I then found out about “Rule 34”. I never thought people would get off on a 14 year olds character from a cartoon show. I was feeling very unmotivated afterward. I decided to take a break.
Originally I was planning to release the rig for educational purposes, but after having found out about the lewd contents of Miko character, I no longer had the drive to continue doing so. At the same time, work was picking up so I ended up putting her project in the backlog. I will return to finish her up in my own time and for my own purposes but I will not release her out there.

Valentine 2020 animation sketch

I had an idea for Valentine but as usual I’m busy with my day job. Nevertheless, it is important to get your ideas out! good or bad, it is yours and it is also good practice =) The rigs were from Kiel Figgins.

Panda does kungfu badminton

Back in January, Richard Lico released the Baquir rig in the anticipation of his amazing Animation Sherpa animation course. A week before that, I was inspired by Kiel Figgings soccer animation prototype he posted. Giving the opportunity of being inspired by both of these amazing animators that I looked up to. I created an animation of the red panda playing badminton. Using a method I have not done before, I created the blocking of the animation using basic geos to get the timing of the shot including the placement of the character.

I eventually referenced in the character and started to blocked in the animation. This was a fun project that I do plan to come back to complete, specifically after I go through Richard’s course as the Rig was intended to sync with what the course is teaching. Back in January, I was too busy with work on Hades that I wasn’t able to concentrate on learning or perhaps learning a whole new workflow wasn’t a priority on my mind as I am always learning and creating out of work. My goals in the early part of 2020 was to level up my modeling and rigging skills. I have been achieving these goals and now am ready to dive into the course especially with Hades shipped on September 17th.