As our Lab experiment continues, we’ve been asking our creators to look back over the animation they’ve created and tell us a bit about it. This hypnotic loop is by Joe, and here’s what he had to say…
Hey Joe! How are you doing today?
I’m alright.
So, can you explain what this animation is?
It’s an attempt at trying something a little unusual. A freaky semi-realistic head sat alongside the cartoonish characters makes it a little unnerving. I wanted to produce a piece that the viewer would keep wanting to watch.
What was your inspiration?
I imagined creating a late night sting for Adult Swim – they’re pretty weird.
Did you intend to use this as a practice or learning tool?
It had been a while since I had done any 3D character rigging. Therefore it was a chance to improve on previous rigs by making faster to animate, cleaner features. Most of my 3D work has been still life, mechanical, or cartoon, so I used this as a chance to model and texture natural and organic subject matter. I spent most of my time on the giant’s head, creating the natural looking skin and painting details such as wispy hairs, plaque and bogies.
Can you take us through your process?
Starting with a few doodles of a simple capsule shaped character, I developed a little businessman in a hurry. I modelled, textured and rigged the little fella all inside Cinema 4D. These rigs are relatively simple. Each with controllers for the limbs, body, head, eyes and brows. The face had more advanced controls that deformed the mouth.
I wanted to make the big character as grotesque and exaggerated as possible, giving the smaller characters reason to run. Smaller details were added to help with the realism and further cement the grossness. Once I was happy with the model I began texturing it. I enjoyed seeing how far I could go creating the textures from scratch.
The little characters were duplicated and I decorated the rest of the scene with a variety of trees, buildings, fence posts, rocks, and flowers. These have a plasticy look, as I wanted the big head to look like it didn’t belong in this world. Giving it a body and arms was a late decision – I felt it was missing something and needed more creepy vibes. Everything up to this point was produced inside of Cinema 4D. Redshift was the renderer as it’s fast and gives amazing results.
Finally, compositing and sound editing were done in After Effects. Sound effects that created a sense of panic and disaster in the scene were used, even though visually it looked colourful and fun. Finally a little colour grading and a blur vignette was added to finish it off.
What did you take from this overall?
I have more confidence in my techniques and workflow to produce 3D animated scenes at a very high level using C4D and redshift.
