Le Patissier- Animatic Ver.1 with footage

After a lot of delay, I have been able to work on the animatic, by taking Alan's advice of using footage from other animations and films onto mine to use as a choreography for my piece, I began editing scenes that I felt that i wanted to add into the animation. So with no further ado here is the 1st version of the animatic.

I have added a few notes for more information.

 

 Meanwhile I have been working on the initial sound effects that will be added on the beginning of the animation, before the character enters the cake/ abstract world.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling III

Here is a quick update, to let you know how the character model is evolving. I have finished the body, and any more details will be added in texturing. (however as I am writing I Just realised i have missed the buttons. they will be model quickly and added to the final model). Next stop head modelling. Also, I will take this weekend to return to the storyboard and create the animatic, up for feedback.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling II

Lately, my life has been very hectic, juggling university work, my money job, and a newly acquired commission, therefore my lack of posts regarding university work. Although the little activity on here, the university work, has been going ( not as fast as I have wished) but it is going.
One of the great news, is that I have been commissioned to do a design project, unfortunately details can not be shared, it has been a good experience, that is allowing me to know new software, acquiring better design skills with a high standard of quality.

With this commission, something was revealed to me, that i would need to improve the access to my website featuring my work. So i decided to buy a domain for my website, and make the url link more user friendly.

so to visit my website you will only have to type:

 www.ruben-martins.co.uk

With more university related work, I have decided while working on the commission to carry on modelling the character. 

so here is the progress: 

Legs and Feet

 Hands

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling Began!

Whilst working the storyboards, I began to feel unwell last week, therefore to keep at work as time is always your enemy i decided to work on the first bits of production. by starting to model the character, i opted for a less tiring task while feeling unwell.

So here is the character so far!

 

In this project, I want to step up in terms of modelling skills therefore while modelling this character have been extra mindful about topology and edge flows. 

Now that im feeling better I will move onto finishing the rest of the storyboard while working on the Olivier 3D model. 

 

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Character Pose & Profile Sheet

Here it is the final character design painting, I have used the precious pose and decided to paint it.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Character Pose & Silhouette

With most of the design sheets done, what is left is to pose the character, and paint it.

here is the final pose and the silhouette, to see if it is working as a recognizable character.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Expression Sheet

As promised here is the expression sheet for Olivier, this sheet features possible expressions that Olivier may do throughout the animation, with these drawings I will be able to recreate this same expressions in 3D.

In terms of character design tasks, I almost done with everything, only left is a few action shots and the final pose digitally painted.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Colour

As Mac and Windows dont seem to share the same colour scheme on the monitors, I have taken the pastry chef colour and tweaked it. the major change was the complexion on the characters which I chose to have a warmer colour. On the final digital painting I will add, blushing or red complexion around the cheeks. Thus far, the character has the intial colour on.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Props Sheet

Here is the props sheet for the Patissier character, this sheet explores the props that the character will have on him.

Next, will be working on the expression sheet, and the last design sheets for the character.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Size Sheet

here is the Size Sheet of the character, although i don't have any other characters I compared with the most important prop in the animation. This wedding cake is only shown as a cake because no design has been done on it so far.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Head and Body Ortographs

To understand the character it is crucial to create turnaround model sheets, this allows us to to understand how the character looks from front and side views, as well as to know if the proportions are working.
Another advantage of a model sheet is that it is a crucial drawing that helps translate the 2d design onto 3D.
Therefore, here is a separate model sheet for the head and the body.

EDIT: I have experimented with the hair as suggested, and i really liked the results.

This extra detail on the hair, allows the silhouette to be more interesting,  and to follow the idea of the whipped cream shape.

I have quickly edited the ortographs also.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Colour Experimentation

With the final design of the character done, I will be moving onto creating model sheets to help me translate the character from 2D to 3D, such as turnarounds and expressions sheets. However before that, I have decided to begin experimenting with colour, which then will help me create the final posed version of the character fully digitally painted.

With these 3 colour variations, I have like a few colours used in each of them. Firstly the uniform, I opted for a fully clean white, the trousers will be chequered and a red scarf. In terms of character complexion, I have opted for a brighter whitish one, and a slightly darker nose (which reminds of Disney). The facial hair, will be a lighter hazelnut colour like variation 1, finally for the eyes, I have chosen blueish.

 Therefore the final colour choice looks like : 

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Body Development

The Final Head design was done, therefore I decided to work parallel and explore the body of the character.

For the body shape of the character I have decided to stylise it a lot, just so I will be able to animate in numerous impossible ways. Although, I tried a few different body variations in terms of overall shape, I decided to opt for a smaller head, big rounded body and tiny feet.

Here is the Final Character Design:

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Face Development

Having a clear idea how I want to the character, and being exploring various possibilities for his design, I have began to narrow down my choices and develop them into final designs. From the previous studies, I have chosen one with pear shape head, therefore I decided to take it further and explore a few more variations on the head shape. 

After developing the head shape, I found the final head design. however some of the assets needed some developing, therefore I created a few variations for facial hair and the hats on the character. 

Exploring with these variations was crucial to arrive to a final design for the character, by choosing facial hair number 3 and hat number 5. The final head design was done. 

Next, I will be exploring the body and how it relates to the head. Stay Tuned !

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Initial Face Studies

Here is a quick update on the character design, after doing the alchemy sketches I have decided to carry on and design some more possibilities, however this time around these designs were more controlled. Here is what i came up with:

With the designs above I have tried to experiment a little bit more with the character, based my ideas around the previous sheet and design 6, i began developing and exploring different shapes. On the sheet above I really like a few features in a few of them, for instance the design 2, 3 5 were my favourite, therefore on the last drawing on the left right, I have experimented by adding the features I liked the most to one design.

The next step is to take this design and further develop the body.

Tweet

Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Initial Alchemy Sketches

With research pretty much finished, (within this stage), I have began moving onto the next stages of the pipeline, on one hand, I have started to sketch designs for the character, on the other hand, developing the performance of Olivier, the Patissier.

As part of my pre-production design workflow, I like to approach in a particular way, before I get too stuck on one design, I begin by exploring various possibilities, for this matter I use software such as Alchemy, this software allows me to create fairly quick abstract shapes, which then I interpret my own way.

With this shapes I then take to Photoshop, and try to visualize characters. while normally you develop the character and then check the silhouette to see if the design works, This method allows me to work from the silhouette and de-construct what I can possibly fit inside.  This approach is very beneficial in many ways, firslty allows me to explore any designs without restrictions, it helps me see form and understand it within the shape, and quickly brainstorm possible designs for a certain character, ohh and it is very fun!!

With this said here is what I came up with. One the Left you can see the final sketch, based on the shape on the right. (although rendered this sketches took me maximum 30 mins to brainstorm.)

From the designs I came up with, some of them, for instance 1, 3 and 6 are closer to what I want to achieve with Olivier, though all of the designs have something I either like or will add onto the final design of Olivier.

Tweet

Major Project: Patissier Character- Initial Profile Sheet and Research

At this early stage of the project, I decided to initially define the character of the patissier featuring in my animation. By creating an initial profile sheet, I am using it to guide when experimenting and developing the character designs. Also, I have gathered some initial influence maps, to give an overall idea of how I want my character to resemble to.

Alongside these 2 elements, I will also write a list on this post with the influences for the designs, it will serve as a quick referencing when accessing my research.

Initial Profile Sheet- Patissier

Fig. 1 & 2- Initial Influence Maps

Name: Olivier

Age: 47

Race: Human (Extra Stylised)

Height: 1.20 m

Body type: Cute Baby Shape, Short with Rounded Body, Chubby Arms and Belly, Small Feet.

Face Type: Chubby Face, Cute Shaped with Rosy Cheeks.

Complexion: Vivid Skin Tone, With Rosy Pigmentation.

Eyes: Probably Blue (Maybe Green or Hazelnut)

Hair: Dark Blonde or Light Brown Hair with Curls Coming Under His Chef's Hat.

Facial Hair: Maybe a Well- Trimmed Moustache Curling Upwards.

Clothing Style: Wears the Patissier Uniform, a Whole White Outfit with a Customised Insignia, and a Chef's Hat.

Speaking Style: Bohemian, Polite and Very Social.

Career: A Well-Established Patissier in the Heart of Paris, Specialised in Making Wedding Cakes.

Best Qualities: Happy, Contagiously Joyful, Pleasant, Amiable, Cute, Likeable, Content, Energetic, Hard-Working, Ecstatic.

Worst Qualities: Overwhelming and Hyperactive.

Weaknesses: Too Short to Properly Reach the Cakes.

With the initial profile of the character understood, now I will be able to begin exploring a few designs. Therefore a few sketches will be uploaded here shortly.

Research List

Character: 

Danny de Vito

Gusteau from Ratatouille, Pixar

Skinner from Ratatouille, Pixar

Russell from Up, Pixar

Happy from Snow White and Seven Dwarves, Disney

Sultan from Alladin, Disney

Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast, Disney

Baby Brent from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Bill Plymptom Characters 

Gnomes

Character Clothes and Props: 

Patissier Uniform- White Jacket, Black Trousers, and maybe a scarf around the neck. 

Chef's Hat

Rolling pin

Tweet

Major Project: The Beginning of the End

Indeed, It is finally the final project of my education career. Looking back this 3 years went so fast that i still remember the first project when I hadnt have any experience in Maya software. I think the veterans of the 3rd year are getting old.
Thus, the last project begins. Since the middle of the 2nd year, I found what I want to do as my career, character designer and ultimately a character animator. Therefore this project will serve to improve these same skills.

Here is the initial proposal list for this project.
This proposal list explains the things I want to achieve and focus in this project and how I am attempting to do it.

What do I want to do ?

Character Design, Character Modelling, Character Sculpting, Character Animation.

What I do not want to do?

Detailed Storyboards, 3 Act Structure Narratives, Vast environments.

What is the focus ?

Character exploration, design, production and animation of maximum 2 characters. They will be modelled, rigged and animated according to a transcription of a speech, a monologue or music.

What will be the main learning skills?

Perfecting my character design skills , as well as modelling and texturing. Understand and learn fully the character production pipeline, emphasizing on character sculpting and animation. Time spent on the project will be concentrated on designing the character and having the character giving a performance.

What will be the outcome?

Ultimately, the main objective of this project will be, to have maximum 2 characters fully designed and transported into the world of 3D, who are able to give a funny performance and entertain the audience.

With this list presented, here is an example in order to visualise my idea.

The 11 Second Club Competition

Via: 11 Second Club, Youtube

Via: 11 Second Club, Youtube

Similarly the 11 Second Club, I am aiming to get a movie scene, speech, monologue or music, either audio or written, and interpret my own way. I want to focus on a 30 second fully animated performance giving by one or 2 characters. Unlikely this competition, my character will be fully designed and produced in 3D by me.

Tweet

'The Final Chapter' by Atom pancakes

Atom Pancakes proudly presents 'The Final Chapter'. Our short animation finally finished.

directed by:
       Jordan Buckner
       Ethan Shilling
       Ruben Martins

Synopsis:

"The story follows our crime writer, Arthur Winters, as he attempts to write the ending of his book. As he thinks through possible ideas, things begin to go wrong around him. While having these ideas, Winters enters his dream space and starts to act like the suspects. When he finally realises an idea that works, he burst into motion to finish his book, however the simplest of the tasks is not so simple after all."

Enjoy!!

Tweet

The Long Awaited Update

For the past few weeks this blog has been very quiet, mainly because weeks, days have been struggle due to the amount of work I have outside of university. Hopefully from this week forward I will be able to update my followers regularly on how my collaboration is going.

Taking from where I left it. The character was fully designed and ready to be translated into the 3D World. So me and the rest of the colleagues at Atom Pancakes, went on to resolve the story, by creating storyboards in order to tell the story. After numerous attempts on getting an animatic ready. The latest version seems to be working.

So me and the rest at Atom Pancakes decided that I would take on the task to model the character in 3D.
So here is the progress on the character:

With the body fully resolved I moved onto modelling the head (the tricky part :))

With this done I moved onto creating the character props, a task that still is being finished. 

Thus far, here are the character props.  

Butler's Tray

Butler's Bow Tie

 Chef's Rolling Pin

Magnifying Glass

More updates to come soon... Stay Tuned!

Tweet