Maya Tutorial part 3: Maya Cartoon Character Stage 1

For the past few weeks I was finishing the first stage of the Cartoon Character Alan gave us.
Even though it was long it did help me understand a bit more in creating a character for Maya. The truth is I already know how to create a character but I only used one cube, in these tutorials it shows other ways in getting a more defined character.
In stage one in creating a character we learnt on how to create a body and other accessories.
I begin with the character's shirt starting with the basic body of the shirt by making it out of a cube. Once that was done I than created one cylinder for the sleeve and another for the collar. All of this had to be created on one side than mirrored, because it was easier than making an entire model trying to sculpt both sides.

Shirt

The next model is the legs.
I began the legs by creating two cylinders, one for the thigh and one for the shin, after I got the general shape I than combined the two and made the knee and a fold for where the legs end to give it more of a trouser appearance. After that I than worked on the pelvis of the legs which was quite tricky because it needed some pockets and needed to define the area of the pelvis a bit more as well. When I was done creating the leg I than mirrored the model. Also I added some blocks on the top of the pelvis to give it the illusion that there was a belt.

Legs

The next and some what tricky model to make was the shoe of my my character. It was tricky because I had to make the entire model with out mirroring it. I think the on bit that gave me trouble was defining the detail on the side of the character shoe and filling the bottom, but when I sculpt them in the only thing left to do was arranging the vertexes to give my shoe more shape and duplicating it.

Shoe

The last bit to model on the body of the character was the arms which wasn't too difficult because most of it is made of cylinders. I believe the trickiest part was the fingers of the character, but not too much just had to make the holes in the right places and adding some more cylinders for the fingers. Than I had to merge the arms to the shirt.

Arm

Here is an image of what all the models are together.

All thats left to do is making the head of the character and add that to the body which will be done in stage two.

Character Design part 12: Sidekick

The next character I was designning is the Sidekick Ulysses. Getting the right design was very hard because I had no experiance in drawing children but I did asked help from Jusitn and Colin White to give me pointers in drawing children by making their heads bigger and their body more roundish. Which I did in his later designs when I was comming up with ideas for his clothes and I really think I captured his cutness. I am going to design two versions of him, one where he is wearing his alien clothes and one where he is wearing his vicorian street urchin clothes.

Character Design part 11: Villian

The next character I have design is the villain Mordecai. I first planned out his shapes to get a general idea of his body physic, which is the typical tall skinny man appearance. I gave Mordecai some big hands to show he uses them a lot in combat and gestures. I shown him design to Justin and he helped me out abit by making his forearms also bigger and making his fingers pointy to give his hands more of a sinister appearance.
To help me to get more of an idea of the type of character Mordecai is I made his poses more powerful by giving him a one arm that will shoot a powerful energy ball, a pose of him in a star jump to represent him dispersing huge amount of energy around himself, a thinking pose to show his genuineness and a hitting the earth pose to show more of his power.
While reviewing this I think I show too much of his power and not enough of his intelligences or his smugness.





Again these are just sketches of his personality not meant to be his final designs.

Character Design part 10: Hero

Here are some of the images of my Hero Felix, I am still making some fixes like how big his eye should be and how muscular he is. I thought my hero won't show too much big expression but he does have some . The ones I thought the expression that would suit my character so far would be scared, angry and a decent smile, I chose those expressions because since my character prefers to be alone he doesn't smile too much and if there's trouble around him he either gets scared or very angry. I have also drew some poses which I think represent my character quite well, the poses I have made are a scared/surprise pose, an annoyed pose and a thinking pose, the running pose was just a sketch of how I see my character running.





The images that are showing Felix's expressions and poses are not my final designs for him but it is a starting point.

Postmodernism part 7: The Truman show

The next film we watched for Postmodernism is The Truman Show.



The film is about Truman Burbank discovering that his life is not what it seems. That his world has certain routines. The way people walk, talk and the way they act. Soon he learnt that his life was a TV show for peoples amusement and he wants out.

This movie is considered Postmodern because it has the character challenging the Director. That he does not want to be kept in a cage and wants to live his own life.
What made this film interesting is that Truman knows how his world operates and how to escape as well, the problem is how he is going to execute it.
Another thing that makes this film interesting is the idea of a man (Truman) taking on something that is bigger than him, like he is challenging god (the director), that he demands his own independence even if it cost him his life.
That's why I like this movie because it is a story of someone small fighting something that is bigger than him.
Now a days television is trying to replicate that feeling by making reality tv which in my opinion is a waste of time, because in realities tv the people know they have to entertain the public but they do it in such an odd way that it felt acted, like people fighting each other or running around naked, example big brother.
However in Truman Show he is a born character living in the life of fiction believing it was reality, and what made this film more successful is how it gives the actual audience a taste of Truman's life of how the audience in the film watches his show.

Narrative Lecture part 6: Dracula(1958)

The next film we have watched for the Narrative lecture is Dracula.




The film is about Doctor Van Helsing investigating the case of Count Dracula and also looking for his missing partner Arthur. Soon Helsing found his partner but has to dispose of him because he has became a vampire. Later Helsing has to protect the family of his partner's fiance from Count Dracula.
The purpose of watching this film is to see a British adaptation of the classic Dracula book. Which is interesting because the film plays on the appearance of British society, with the people in a pub being quiet and don't want any trouble, while the upper classes wants to know whats going on around their homes. It even plays on their appearances and the way the public talks as well. With people from the lower classes wearing old tattered clothes and talking in a rough tone to having the higher classes being well dressed and spoke in a posh manner.
The strengths of the film is the opening sequence with the camera moving towards the castle of Count Dracula to zooming into the his coffin with blood dripping on his name, this shows that something is strange about Dracula himself. The other is how the clothes specks about the character a bit more, with Dracula his clothes is black with a red inside this shows that Dracula has a creepy feel around, while looking at Van Helsing clothes you feel safe yet worried when around him.
The weakness is that the film has bad pacing, an example would be the beginning. The film did not left too much of a mystery on Dracula we are introduce and we instantly know that something is up with him. Few minutes later it is reveled that he is a vampire, it did not left any room for the audience to think about the strangeness of Dracula.
I did not like the film too much because the acting felt stale, it didn't have the level of acting to make the film more interesting. The music was quiet most of the time and only plays when something dramatic happens, there is no mysterious background music when something questionable happens.

Postmodernism part 6: Adaptation.

The film we watched for Postmodernism is Spike Jonze 'Adaptation.'.




The movie is a about a screen writer named Charlie Kaufman who is struggling to write a story based on the book 'The Orchid Thief' which is different from what he is use to writing. Having him doing massive research on the book and still have nothing to write. He goes to orchid gardens, writer seminars with a famous writer even asked his brother for some help, until he finally decided to write about himself writing his troubles on working on the screenplay for the film.

To me this movie has a Mulholland Drive feel to it, by that I mean it has many stories with lots of characters, but unlike Mulholland Drive, Adaptation goes in a straight motion without making too many side stories that it confuses the audience.
The number of stories I can see in this film is three. The first being the main character Charlie Kaufman, who is struggling in writing a screen play based on the book that was given to him. The second is the other main character Susan Orlean, who is on a quest in looking for the ghost orchid to see what is so special about it. Finally the third is when Kaufman comes across the love affair between Orlean and her lover John Laroche and she wants to cover it up by killing Kaufman.
What makes this film Postmodern is that it is based on the screen writer's actual difficulty in writing the screen play for the book. From him looking for help in writing his screen play to actually writing something that felt a bit too far fetched to be real, mostly near the end.