Larry Facial Expression Tests

These are some facial expressions I did on Larry's rig a few weeks back.

At this point I've been animating for the past couple of weeks, which was a little over schedule, by 2 weeks or so.

 Pre production was an incredibly time consuming, and frustrating, though I learned so much in the process, and now I'm back to animating, which is so much more fun. 

Man Rig Dialog Test

This is a quick dialog test I did on the man rig a couple of months ago after I re-rigged him.

I originally wasn't going to have a mouth on the character, but after I decided to re rig the character because I wasn't happy with the joint placement, I figured I might as well.

I wanted to get the same exaggerated look that I got with Larry's mouth, but for this one I created a blendshapes to completely pull away each side of the mouth to create the empty space where you would normally have the cheek on the other side.

Larry Rig: Functionality Test Animation

This is a test of the Larry rig functionality, I'm still testing out how the eyes will work , so the ones in the video are just stand-ins.

And this is a test of the functionality I want to get out of the eye, its important to get them just how I have planned because they will be one of Larry's most expressive features.

Larry Rig: Lip Sync Test

These are a couple of  lip sync tests I did on Larry's rig to see if I had enough mouth blendshapes.

I eventually added 3 more shapes to give just a little more variation.
If these don't play go to http://vimeo.com/24666700

3D Background: Implied Perspective Tests

These are some background tests I modeled, to try and capture the look of the concept designs.

To do this I experimented with implied perspective, creating the illusion of distance without having to place the objects where they would actually be in the physical world.

Of course this only works in this case because the cameras remain in stationary positions for these scenes. If I were to pan along the street the illusion would be lost.

Character Models

Here are the final models for the characters.

There will be more detail on the mans suit, which will be  normal mapped onto the character.

Larry Boyd Animatic

Larry Boyd Animatic from chris real on Vimeo.

Here's the Animatic for Larry Boyd.
The frames were taken directly from the storyboard and composited in After Effects.
The voices I used are a rough draft, but are along the lines of how the finals will sound.

Final Background Concept Colour

Here are the final colour concepts for the backgrounds

Final Character Colour Concepts

Here are the final colour concepts for the characters

Larry and Joe Maquette Busts

I sculpted these busts from Super Sculpey form the final designs of Larry and Joe, to see how the designs would translate into 3 dimensions before I model them in Maya.

Character Colour Concepts 1st Draft

Here are some concepts I did for the possible colour for Larry and Joe

Final Joe Character Design

So here's the final design for Joe

Final Larry Character Design

So here's the final design for Larry.

As I was playing around with different designs and doing various drafts of the storyboard he gradually became more and more this design. 

I feel like this design fits his personality and the style I was aiming for.

Background designs

 These are the 1st and 2nd draft designs for the backgrounds.

With this one I was testing a panel from the then 2nd draft Storyboard as the men approach before they get crapped on.