Out of Tune - 3D Animation Project CSM: Out of Tune

Ok, So I decided to find a new story but utilising Wally and the Parrot in
some way. I also wanted to somehow keep the 'levels of agitation' that I had in
'The Present'. A Theatre group called Complicite had been helping us develop levels of emotion through time, and they are also part of this National Gallery Project, so I really wanted to use some of their ideas in my story.

The Idea

I liked the idea of incorporating music, or a musical instrument at least. And then I saw this painting while surfing their awesome website :
The Scale of Love

I like the idea of two characters interacting under a tree.
How about still using the Parrot as a source of irritation? Keep the whole event outside, one environment. maybe Wally wants to be alone but the parrot keeps bothering him. Or even better, Wally is trying to play guitar peacfully and Polly keeps interrupting.

The Animatic

SO this is the Animatic I ended up with, after alot of playing around with the timing and sound. And no, it's not me playing guitar, they are some cool royalty free guitar sounds purchased from Computer Music magazine.:

The Parrot in the previous Animatic idea was kinda alien, but I really liked the simple parrot designs that were more stylised, and without a thingy on his head, it seemed to take emphesis away from his huge beak so it had to go. Here are some of the References I used. The pencil drawing is Claudia k's impression...which sent me in the right direction, I see now.

Wally is pretty much the same guy.

3D Modelling

Cool, the fun bit, here are examples of the working prototype models with rigging, for Wally & Polly

3D Wally

I put alot of attention on Wally's facial controls, as I wanted to focus on emotional thought processes and facial acting on this project. So there are two layers of control, Blendshapes with left and right blending, and then clusters on the cheeks and nose, so that I can tweak those as neccessary. i learnt alot here, in fact, I was really tempted to go back and start all over, using the new techniques I had learnt along the way. But I dont think I have time, so I've make do with what I have........ or will I?

3D Polly

This is the blueprint I used to model polly

Polly's rig is relativly simple, though I'm looking into adding squash and stretch funtionality for his Torso

Props

Here is the Guitar and Chair I designed

The Environment

I know that I dont want realistic looking trees, I want someting more stylised, Like polly is, in a way. Also, I'm hoping to use slightly more abstract stylised textures too, like watercoluor painting type, scanned in, or just a few filters in Photoshop first.