And the paddington project is finished!

Here's the video:

And my rational:

“In the style of” gave us the opportunity to extend our creative knowledge in a way that allowed us to come up with novel twists on original ideas, but also aesthetically followed a pre-requisite style.

This presented a number of issues from the offset, since it would be an interesting challenge to create a piece of animation that didn’t just feel as though it were ripping off the original content, and acted instead as a homage rather than a copy.

In order to do this I would need to pick the right IP to reboot in the style that furthered the narrative most effectively.

Primarily I watched each of the available original cartoons for Paddington, TMNT and Roobarb- Immediately I felt that I could draw parallels between the original British version of Paddington, with its cut-out backdrops and charming stop-motion animation, and the desaturated, recycled  style of ‘The Lost Thing’.

I also liked that the characters in this sketch had stylised limb proportions, which I felt could translate well to possible bear concepts.

At first I did a number of facial sketches for Paddington (see my WIP blog) in order to get a large visual reference pool from which to select and adapt an original and exciting concept, after that came the body- which was designed with modelling in mind, or rather with a challenge in mind.

When it came to modelling the bear in Max, I learnt many things through dodging and occasionally falling into pitfalls along the way, for instance I found that using a symmetry modifier on a subdivided object seems to bake in the subdivisions, which is at best frustrating, and at worst an absolute farce when it came to exporting to Mudbox for texturing and details.

Thankfully, I managed to get a model that was workable, and when it came to designing a secondary model for the little old lady afterwards, I breezed it in a fraction of the time and produced a clean, simple model that exported and edited inside mudbox like a dream.

It was also helpful to learn and practice with CAT rigging, again I had a few issues when building the bear, but by the time I got round to modelling the lady, things were much smoother and I had a clear idea of what to do and how, though next time I would like to explore the application of morph targets and see whether they are compatible with CAT rigs.

Yet again I found that rendering is something that should be done with a notebook and checklist at hand, especially if it happens to take place at silly-O’clock in the morning (Gotta get those stills rendered whilst I’m asleep- efficiency!)

I found that the post production knowledge that I’d picked up was very useful, though I had a lot less time available for post that I would’ve liked, due to personal deadlines being somewhat flexed in the run up to the solid deadline, overall I was pleased with the result and can hopefully fully master the art of a comfortable timeline during the next project!