- An Art of Joey Ku

About Me
I am currently a third year student studying for my degree in CG Arts and Animation at the University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, Kent (UCA). The idea of creating an animated short as a year long project is because of my interests in creating unique characters and worlds from 2D to. With this in mind and also having an interest in developing my production and animation skills, this led the project dividing into two sections. This specific Art of document shows the progress made so far for the first half of the project: Character Design and Modelling along with some extra work made in preparation for the animation.

The Project
The Carnival of the Animals is a year long project divided into two parts, The Minor Project and The Major Project. The main intention of this year long project is to create awareness about animal extinction in a scenario similar to a wildlife campaign as a 1-2 minute animated short. The Minor Project is the first half of the project which comprises of 14 weeks focusing on character design and modelling. Because character design and performance as well as improving my skills in creating an animated short are the main focus , environments will be kept simple to help add more emphasis on the characters. Mission Statement: Once The Minor Project has been completed, the next stage is in The Major Project. This would focus on the Pre-Production, the Production stage and Post Production to create the final animated outcome as intended within the space of 15 weeks. This includes, refining the animals rigs, animating, compositing and editing.

Art Direction
To help create awareness, the short is inspired by the colourful yet unique animals leading to be further inspired by the likes of Charley Harper and Eric Carle by their use of textures, colours and simple shapes. This led to the idea of the animals being emphasised by their strong bright colours in a world that darkness never exists. With the art direction chosen, music was needed to aid the animation. Hearing French Romantic Composer, Camille Saint Sanss piece The Carnival of the Animals in particular the finale, this helps create an atmosphere of celebration along with the characters vivid colours. Shock impact in the music would help aid in making the animation more serious.

Pre-Production: Storyboard
Heading into the pre-production stage helps plan out what steps are needed or developed to make a successful animation. This includes storyline, storyboards and concept art surrounding the characters, environments and the art style.
To create the story, Ive listened to the music piece and quickly made rough drawings and taking notes on how the story goes. As the storyline became more clear, this was laid out onto a storyboard for visual guidance which would be further developed and made into an animated storyboard or an animatic.

Storyboards

Characters
Choosing what animals to include in the animation was tricky as the common animals that we know are extinct such as the Dodo or the Tasmanian wolf cannot be used or else it would be a straight giveaway to what the animation is about. Ive decided to research some animals that were well known between 16th and the 20th century due to either hunting, pollution or due to nature itself . Overall, I have chosen six animals from different environmental areas: land, sea and air.

Animal Thumbnails

Chosen Selected Animals

Early Concept Art

The following are early concept art which later had to be changed as introducing dark colours could ruin the storyline as well as making it look distracting. This later changed to the idea of introducing coloured shadows/ coloured rim lighting in front of a white backdrop which is later seen during modelling development . The next set of images shows the changes made in response to the early concept art. The coloured rim lighting is later made during 3D character development.

Stellers Sea Cow

European Sea Sturgeon

Eastern Elk

Xerces Blue Butterfly

Haasts Eagle

Sea Mink

Final Concept Art

Animal Turnarounds

Animal Turnarounds

Animal Turnarounds

Modelling Stellers Sea Cow was a bit tricky as I havent modelled animals before. However looking closely at the animal, Ive found that both human and animal modelling have similar topology which became more clearer and easier to model this and other characters.

Modelling- Stellers Sea Cow

Modelling- European Sea Sturgeon

Unlike the Stellers Sea Cow, this was slightly difficult at first as the arrangement of the nose and mouth were completely different to the Sea Cows and a humans. But upon closer inspection it is noted that the flow of the lower jaw is the same as a humans or to plan it out, think of it and treat it as if it is a clay model and how to sculpt it.

Modelling- Haasts Eagle

Getting into the grips of modelling and getting more used to topology, modelling the Haasts Eagle was slightly easier. The wings were slightly harder to make and plan out where the vertices or edges should go. However, thinking of the a birds skeletal structure helped plan it out.

Modelling- Xerces Blue Butterfly

The Xerces Blue Butterfly was easy to model as it does not require any facial modelling or limbs but just a body and a pair of wings instead. This model was one of the quickest models to make.

Modelling- Eastern Elk

Creating a quadruped model was a bit difficult at first in terms of edge flow and how or where the edges should go. Again, treating it like a humans modelling, modelling the Eastern Elk made things a bit clearer.

Modelling- Sea Mink

Referring back to the Eastern Elks modelling, it had gave me a rough idea on how to model the last character of the group, the Sea Mink. The head is slightly similar to modelling the Sea Cows with the exception of the lower jaw and including eyelids for the mink.

Grouped Models

UV Process
Applying UVs to my characters were vital especially when it comes to making textures onto another software. To UV the characters, some of the models had to be taken apart before reattaching them back together again.

Texturing the Characters

The textures made in the concept art consists of many layers with different blending modes. To retain the look, it was better to have the textures painted onto the model using another software, Mudbox. This was far more easier to work with in particular when working with seam lines, which could be painted overlay. Ive made an experiment beforehand texturing on Maya, however seam lines were noticeable and it did not have the look I have in mind.

Textures- Stellers Sea Cow

European Sea Sturgeon model and texture map

Textures- Haasts Eagle

Textures- Haasts Eagle

Xerces Blue Butterfly model and texture map

Textures- Eastern Elk

Textures- Sea Mink

Textures- Sea Mink

Lighting the Models

Lighting is an important aspect for this animation. With the world being only restricted to colour and no shadows are shown, the only way to make the characters stand out from one another was to create a rim shader. This creates the effect similar to holographic paper that emits a lighter colour when lit or bent. Using a colour based on a different animal helps define it as a group.
Top: Rim shading applied Below: Without shaders

Rigging and Skinning

In the early stages of rigging, it was best to research about various animal anatomy and how their movements work. This involved going to The Natural History Museum in London and from there took reference images as well as sketching some exhibits.

Rigging and Skinning-Sea Mink

Although the Sea Mink was already rigged and skinned during the Minor Project. Refinements and new rig parts were needed for a better animated character. The mink is the only character that would have a unique skeleton rig. The spine would contain a ribbon spine for squash and stretch, the body overall would have a quadruped skeleton, and as for the legs, theyre slightly humanoid. Skinning the character was slightly easier through using painting skin weights.

Rigging and SkinningSea Cow and the Sturgeon

The Stellars Sea Cow and the European Sea Sturgeon were fairly easy to rig as their only purpose throughout the animation is to either swim in a zigzag route or simply vertically. Skinning the two characters were fairly simple to assign the geometry to the rig.

Rigging and SkinningHaasts Eagle

From the group, the Haasts Eagle was more difficult to rig and skin due to the amount of geometry within the character. Even though the character only performs its wings flapping, animating claws, eyes, beak and tail made it more lifelike.

Rigging and SkinningXerces Blue Butterfly

The Xerces Blue Butterfly was the quickest characters to be rigged and skinned. This was simply due to the amount of geometry in the character and how it performs which only the wings move.

Rigging and SkinningEastern Elk

Like the mink, rigging and skinning the Eastern Elk seemed slightly easier to do except for some parts of the rig, which are a bit different to the Mink.

Creating Cycles

Animating a Run CycleSea Mink

Research was made as to how the animals move using their living closest relative as a guide. However for the mink, a reference run had to be created. Looking at a squirrels run cycle for dynamics and a cats run cycle as a rough guide helped create an energetic character run. With the sea mink having the ribbon spine applied and with the right timing using a metronome, this helped create a squash and stretch movement on the model.

Animating a Flight CycleHaasts Eagle

For the Haasts Eagle, Ive looked into an Eagles flight cycle and tried to recreate this for my character. Similar to the mink, Ive had it movements play in sync with my music piece.

Animating a Flight CycleXerces Blue Butterfly

As the Xerces Blue Butterfly only has its wings flapping, timing is important to ensure it mixes well with other animal characters when performing together.

Animating a Walk CycleEastern Elk (W.I.P)

Just like the Mink, the Eastern Elk has its cycle made to go in time to the beat of the music. However, as the Elk is performing the Piaffe, a horse dressage movement which the horse performs a collected trot. This movement suits into the animatic as this could emphasize the dynamics of the music. As there isn't much reference to the Piaffe, a classic walk cycle is made which will soon become the dressage movement.

Animating a Swim CycleEuropean Sea Sturgeon

The European Sea Sturgeon swim cycle was much quicker to animate as it swims only from side to side. However to make it more lifelike, some extra controls were made in particular the tail, where each joint has a slight delay from one another.

Animating a Swim CycleStellers Sea Cow

Much like the European Sea Sturgeon, the only swimming movement the Stellers Sea Cow makes is swimming vertically. Meaning that as the tail goes down, the chest moves up and vice versa. With that in mind and the timing of each stroke, the Sea Cow was fairly quick to animate.

Pre-Production: Environments (W.I.P)

As the carnival world is made up of vibrant colours, shadows and dark colours do not exist. Therefore to give the animals some area or environment to depict the carnival journey like from the animatic, various experiment designs are made. Papercut out trees are made along with some testing of various materials with pale colours of grey or cream for appearance. Water is still work in progress.

Pre-Production: Timings
Before going into animating the final animation, I have taken account of timings of each sequence based on the animatic. The purpose of this is to find and attempt to have the animation play in sync to the emphasized beats from the musical piece. To do this, a shot list is made with the duration of the sequence included.

Pre-Production: Making a Schedule

Setting up Turnarounds
Having a plinth for a character to stand on helped create space for the characters to perform their turnarounds in rather than just a white space. To retain the look of Eric Carle and Charley Harpers colourful yet textured appearance on the models, ambient lights were used to whiten the background and also brighten up the characters and eliminate any shadows. Rim lighting was also added onto the characters, using colours taken from other animal models to make them feel more of a group.

Rendered Concepts

Sea Mink

Rendered Images

Eastern Elk

Rendered Images

Haasts Eagle

Rendered Images

European Sea Sturgeon

Rendered Images

Xerces Blue Butterfly

Rendered Images

Stellers Sea Cow

Rendered Images

CD and Front Cover