turn off the lights
turn off the lights
Type: Personal Project
Role: Animation, Lighting, Rendering
Tools: Maya, Premiere Pro
I really wanted to challenge myself to animate a more complex rig and preferably something not humanoid so that I could step outside of my comfort zone. I had recently come across a funny audio clip, and when looking at what rigs I had available, I found a dragon. From there, another reference video I found a while ago came to mind, and so I constructed this scene.
This was the reference I found that made me think of what exactly I wanted to do for this animation and this is the rig I used.
I started by syncing the models mouth to the audio clip. This proved to be a bit difficult because the model wasn’t exactly humanoid and therefore, the mouth shape was different. I also could not find much reference material of dragons talking that I liked; therefore, this process was a lot of trial and error.
I also did my best to play around with the eyebrows and the eyes in order to make a menacing looking dragon, match the harmless audio clip.
Once that was done, I wanted to set up the scene with a background before blocking the movements of the dragon because they would be closely tied with his surroundings. I used this castle.
Once it was in place, I started blocking the position and orientation of the dragon.
Then, slowly, I positioned more and more limbs, starting with the legs, then the torso, then the neck, and finally the wings.
After the main blocking was completed and all the limbs of the dragon were in place, I began adding small details like whipping the tail around, adding small movements in his claws, giving him more attitude through his head movements, and avoiding any clipping through the ground.
I am happy with the final product. I think it’s entertaining, and I believe the character sells the audio and the action well. However, I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t plan the scene and its movement better and therefore lost time animating actions that would not be seen.