Skullduggery's Rigging and Skinning Attempt | Maya | Adaption B | Year 2

These are screenshots from my rigging and skinning attempt for Skullduggery. 

Reflective Statement | Adaption B | Year 2

I think that the work that I did for the crit was good but not good enough. Although towards the end I did push myself to get the work done, I need to churn out artwork and thumbnails earlier on to help aid my project and ultimately speed it up. 

I know that if I had started modelling earlier, I could have gotten a lot further through the pipeline. 

I think overall I'm proud of the work I've done but feel a level dissatisfaction towards the amount that I got done. This model helped me prove to myself that I do have the capabilities to create a 3D character in Maya. I also create the UVs through a lot of trial and error and I believe that I've learnt a lot in the past few weeks. 

I do want to revisit this project over the summer as I do have a list of things I would like to fix but my ultimate goal is to achieve what I first set out to do at the start of this project. If I do continue work on Skullduggery, I will try to get myself into a better habit surrounding blog posts and updates.

Final Crit | Adaption B | Year 2

Final Pres - Adaption B by Beckie Ryan on Scribd

@Alan @Simon MAYA HELP NEEDED

This is how my model is supposed to look but every time I save and close the program, something weird happens. When reopening the file, an error code appears and then the trousers implode.

This was the 3rd time this happened. Every time this happened, I just deleted the trousers and remodelled because I knew I could model it better than the time before. I also made a copy of the file and changed the name to see if it would help.

This is what happened for the 5th time. The trousers at the top are how it looked before I closed it and  this is how it looked when I reopened it.

It hasn't happened to the suit jacket or to any of my other files including the skull. I don't know what to or if there is any fix? I have modelled the trousers 5 times now and every time I reopen the files including the autosaves and backups, the error appears and the trousers implode.

Suit Progress | Maya | Adaption B | Year 2

This is how Skullduggery's suit is looking so far! I think I've managed to get a nice shape with good definition to the suit and tie when the model is un-smoothed as well as smoothed. The collar doesn't match with my orthographs but I think the way I have modelled it looks a lot smoother.

Orthographs | Illustrator | Adaption B | Year 2

Skull orthographs

Original suit orthographs

Updated suit orthographs

These are the orthographs for Skullduggery Pleasant. After drawing the suit, I realised that the arms were incorrectly drawn for an orthograph and redrew. I've included both drawings as I feel that the progression is important and shows that I have realised my mistake and corrected this.

Skull 2 | Test | Adaption B | Year 2

This was attempt 2 at modelling a skull. This time it went a lot better and I could create a smoother shape but there was still too much geometry. My third skull will be made using the proper orthography and not the original drawings from the 1st 2 attempts which I think will help.

Skull 1 | Test | Maya | Adaption B | Year 2

This was my first attempt at modelling a skull. Although I got the rough shape correct, I had added too much geometry and it was getting very difficult to change the shape.

Skull Thumbnails | 49 - 96 | Adaption B | Year 2

Skull Thumbnails | 1 - 48 | Adaption B | Year 2

Skeleton Drawings | Adaption B | Year 2

Suits | Adaption B | Year 2

Crit Write Up | Adaption B | Year 2

I feel that the crit went well. The feedback I received was good and has helped me to create a plan for the upcoming weeks of work. Of course I expect this to change with time but this is my rough plan as follows:

6 weeks to go: final drawings done. Art style chosen. 

5 weeks to go: final model started

4 weeks to go: model at around 50% done

3 weeks to go: model at around 80% complete

2 weeks to go: model complete and poses started

1 week to go: render time and time for making an art of

Deadline: 11th May

Within the next week I need to experiment with art styles as I've been told that maybe a realistic look isn't the simplest to create. I want my work to be some what realistic but with a cartoon feel. I need to try to express this within my drawings to do this I need to draw some more skeletons in suits in a range of styles rather than different components separately. 

I have to leave myself a lot of time to model my character Skullduggery Pleasant because as Phil put so plainly, my project is a 'naked project'. This means that at its core, my character is a skeleton in a suit. There is no room for error as people know what each components look like and if there is even one element wrong, it will break the elusion.

My final piece will be a short animated sequence but I would also like a few other rendered shots of him in various positions. I know this will take time and I've given myself roughly 2 weeks to do this in so I hope that no major issues arise. 

Currently, I have given myself 5 weeks to create a fully modelled and rigged character. I think this is manageable but I cannot slack during the modelling stage. In the past my time management hasn't always been the best so I'm going to reevaluate my work weekly to try and keep on top of my workload. 

Interim Crit | Adaption B | Year 2

Interim Crit - Adaption B by Beckie Ryan on Scribd

Film Noir and Skullduggery Pleasant Comparison | Adaption B | Year 2

During my research I started to notice a lot of similarities between film noir and the plot of Skullduggery Pleasant. I've done a simple comparison using some of the information from the BFI's infographic. 

American Pulp Fiction

Term originated from the magazines of the first half of the 20th century which were printed on cheap "pulp" paper and published fantastic, escapist fiction for the general entertainment of the mass audiences. The pulp fiction era provided a breeding ground for creative talent which would influence all forms of entertainment for decades to come. The hardboiled detective and science fiction genres were created by the freedom that the pulp fiction magazines provided.

Pulp Fiction is a term used to describe a huge amount of creative writing available to the American public in the early nineteen-hundreds. Termed "pulp magazines" because of the low quality paper used between the covers, these publications proliferated in the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties to the point where they blanketed newsstands in just about every popular fiction genre of the time.

http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pulpfiction/introduction/What-Is-Pulp-Fiction.php

Research and Influence Maps | Adaption B | Year 2

I've been looking to strengthen the idea behind my Adaption B project by researching into all things 'noir'. From film noir, to neo-noir and tech noir; its been interesting piecing all of this information together and seeing the many different sides of the genre and its respective sub-genres. 

I watched Frank Miller's Sin City. Its a neo-noir piece with its background and themes based purely around the comic books. This adaption made for an interesting piece. It pays homage to film noir with its story lines, camera angles and black and white look but switches things up a bit with added splashes of colour. This added colour in some of the scenes really makes it 'pop' and drags the viewers eye to important pieces of information.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/infographic-what-makes-film-noir

While researching into film noir, I stumbled across this beautiful infographic posted by the British Film Industry. It depicts the main points of noir and how it differs from other black and white films. This infographic has started to make me compare Skullduggery Pleasant and its plot line to film noir and so far I've made a lot of similarities. 

Skullduggery, first and foremost is a detective. Although he is a walking talking skeleton technically held together with magic, the bare bones of this series (pardon the pun) is a detective series with a bit of magical flair and fantasy thrown in. These shots are taken from classic film noir pieces and demonstrate how I'm beginning to imagine Skullduggery posed. Not only do I want to model the skeleton detective, I want him to be a homage to film noir as well. Even in the books, his clothing and attitude gives a nod towards the world of film noir and I would like to further that in my final piece.

During a google search of 'neo-noir' I stumbled across Marius Vieth, an amazing Dutch-German photographer and artist who is better known by the name 'VICE'. He did a collection of stills based around neo-noir and visually they look amazing. Of the 4 photos above, 3 of them capture a sense of how I want Skullduggery to be posed. I want him staged as if he was part of a noir film but to add a dash of neo-noir by adding a pop of colour as the flame in his hand ignites.

Overview of Ideas | Adaption B | Year 2

For my Adaption B project, I started off with 4 separate ideas that all originate from books. Up until this point, their research and idea development has been separate but I felt it was time to compress the core ideas into one post and start choosing my final idea.

Skullduggery Pleasant

The idea surrounding my plans to adapt Skullduggery Pleasant is to combine the essence of the story with neo-noir. I hope to take direct excerpts from the series as a base to create a model of Skullduggery and have him pose in a classic film-noir setting before he creates a flame in his hands and the scene pops with colour. This is possibly the strongest idea that I have and I would love to create more than one model, even if it is Skullduggery as the Skeleton Detective and Skullduggery in his disguise. However, I would rather model another character to pose along side him. Namely Stephanie Edgley, the female protagonist or her kiss-ass fighting alter-ego, Valkyrie Cain. 

The Last Dragon Chronicles

The last Dragon Chronicles is based around magical clay dragons. I want to take direct excerpts from the books about 3 of the dragons and model them around a superhero concept. This could go 1 of 2 ways. A more realistic view based around the live action superhero films such as X-Men or the Fantastic Four or to go for the comic book look with the bold outlines and bright colours. Of course, they are initially clay dragons and I’m keen to stick with this but to what degree of realism is still debatable. I have some inspiration in the form of my 2 clay dragons at home but I don't want to be influenced too much, as this could affect their overall look.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

The main concept for The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is to create a 3D walk through of the map, taking influence from the Game of Thrones intro sequence. This revolves around the map illustration from within the cover of book 1. This is one of the more vague ideas out of the 4 but it does have potential. For this idea to work, it would take a lot of effort as the map is quite extensive. A lot of it is forest based before reaching different clan settlements and several different terrains including mountain ranges and the sea. These are modelling issues which would need research before committing to this idea, as the set would be large with many assets to it.

Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl has the potential to be great but comes with several issues. It is the only idea that has a prior adaption into a graphic novel. Although my idea to adapt it may be seen as another vague idea, I believe that the art style from the graphic illustrations and graphic artists Dan Mumford and Olly Moss create, I could really take the models to a new level visually. Making one fully rigged character in this time limit is ordinarily enough of a challenge but for this idea to reach its full potential, I feel that I would have to model the other 2 characters. This obviously has its drawbacks as I would be modelling not only a human boy but a centaur and a fairy. This could take a lot of time as they would need special attention and potentially look wrong with their level of realism compared to Artemis or even with aesthetic features.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness and Artemis Fowl are definitely the weakest ideas. They would take a lot of time and effort and ultimately at this time, I do not think that they would be possible to complete within the time frame. I think that Skullduggery Pleasant is definitely the strongest idea and has a lot of potential. It has the most interesting approach by including neo-noir and with no prior adaptions, it would allow me to put my own twist on the series. The Last Dragon Chronicles is another strong idea but the superhero idea does need refining. 

At this point, I feel that I should narrow my ideas down to Skullduggery and the dragons as they are definitely the strongest ideas. I feel that Skullduggery is the best idea but I don't want to jump straight into neo-noir with out taking this idea further in research and designs.

Further Ideas | Artemis Fowl | Adaption B | Year 2

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer is a series of books that features criminal master mind Artemis Fowl the 2nd. Although he's only a teenage genius, Artemis captures Captain Holly Short, of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Recon) and he holds her ransom to exploit the magical fairy people to restore his family's fortune. Foaly is a centaur, a technical genius and a computer geek. He works for LEP and is in charge of “preventing humankind from discovering the fairy civilisation”.

The book itself is highly detailed and has many layers to it but it breaks down into the central premise of a boy genius in a magical world. Artemis Fowl is the only one of my ideas that has been adapted previously. The series ran not only as a book series but as a graphic novel as well. I personally have never seen these but I have seen a few pieces of artwork from it but they differ hugely from what I imagined the characters would be.

Initially, I wanted to model the three main characters from the descriptions I could extract from the book. When I learnt that there was a graphic novel, I felt that I should give this graphic look a spin for my work. When I was reading the books, I always felt that there was a cartoon-esque feel about the novel when I learnt about the magical side to the story. I saw Artemis and his bodyguard Butler as humans but imagined Holly and Foaly as cartoon like people as I’d never seen a film with a ‘realistic’ fairy or centaur at this point. 

I want to model Artemis Fowl but I feel that he would not be best portrayed if I didn't have at least one of the other main characters there; namely Holly or Foaly. When trying to take this graphic look into account for my idea, it reminded me of two artists who's work I have adored for several years; Dan Mumford and Olly Moss.

Dan Mumford is a British freelance illustrator. Over the years he has created designs for album covers, branding and screen prints, to new interpretations of classic film posters and albums. His work is unique and revolves around a cartoony feel with a classic tattoo feel. He also uses bright bold colours to accentuate the contrast between the colour and thick black lines. His style would be great to use texturally on characters and for background sets/imagery.

Olly Moss is another British freelance illustrator and graphic artist. He rose to fame reimagining movie posters. His work is regularly featured in Empire the film magazine. His work has a different feel to Dan’s but has equal beauty. Olly’s work is clean and clinical but also relies on colour and contrast. Olly’s work is more relaxed and has a minimalist feel. This approach could also work as well if I keep the lines clean with block colours. 

Ultimately, this idea is lacking but does have potential. It's the only idea with some form of pre-existing adaption and if I did choose this, then I would have to be very conscious of this pre-existing work. Although I have never seen this, I would have to be careful not to be influenced by it while making sure that I am not creating imagery that could be seen as replicating this work. 

Further Ideas | The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness | Adaption B | Year 2

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver is a series of six historical fantasy books that follow Torak, a 12 year old boy and his wolf cub companion. They must battle to save their world as their journey takes them through “deep forests, across giant glaciers and into dangers they never imagined.”

I have 2 separate ideas revolving around this project. The first was to create models of the 2 main characters from the series; Torak and Renn. The other main character in this book is a wolf. Torak and Wolf are inseparable and I’m not sure if it would be possible to model and rig Torak, a young boy and a wolf in the time frame given. 

The map from the inside covers of the 1st book Wolf Brother.

My 2nd idea for adapting this series is revealed within the front covers of the book. There is a detailed drawing of a map to help the readers visualise Torak’s journey. I was thinking about taking some inspiration from the Game of Thrones start sequence by making a 3D model of the map from the book. It could start high above the set to replicate the book before diving into the map at head height. There are several ways that this idea can move on from there. It could mimic the way the the structures raise in Game of Thrones, it could be a walk through of the map tracing Torak’s trial in the books or it could even revolve around a series of camera shots that show the true extent of the set from head height. 

Further Ideas | The Last Dragon Chronicles | Adaption B | Year 2

The Last Dragon Chronicles is a series of books with a target audience for young teenagers. The book revolves around David Rain, a lodger in the Pennykettle residence. He soon finds out the clay dragons, scattered around the house are actually real and all possess special powers. I wanted to model 3 of the main dragons from the series: Gadzooks, Gretel and Grace. 

Clay Dragon Information

Gadzooks

An inspirational writing dragon with a powerful ability to make events happen simply by writing down words on the notepad he carries. Guides David throughout the series and is influential in all the major developments of the story.

Gretel

A potions dragon who casts spells in the scents of flowers. Initially made for Gwilanna, she later defects to Zanna.

Grace

A listening dragon. She has the ability to pick up and beam signals from and to humans such as Liz or David, or any of the other Pennykettle dragons.

At home I have 2 clay dragons of my own. ‘Smokey’ on the left is an incense burner. You put an incense cone inside and smoke trails from his nostrils. ‘Lumos’ on the right is an ornate lamp. I wanted to draw inspiration from these and input them into my own.

https://www.facebook.com/LittleDragonDesign

Little Dragon Designs, is a small company on Facebook. The lady sculpts her own dragons. They are truly amazing and a great reference point but they may ultimately be too realistic. Although these are sculpted by hand just like in the books, they may have too much detail which could be hard to depict in Maya. 

For this idea, I ultimately want to model at least 1 of these clay dragons and merge it with a comic book style. Due to their ‘hidden’ powers, I was thinking about making them into a superhero gang like the X-Men or the Fantastic Four. This may be down to the posing or the colouring, maybe even black outlines using the toon shader to accentuate the comic style or if more than one if modelled, it could be a ‘gang’ pose that is used.