what I've been up to lately

Still working on the spider rig and about to start a full biped rig, but at the moment, I'm focused on facial rigging. I got this great head model from my friend Iana and I've been modifying it to be able to create some facial expressions and controls. Little did I know that it would be such a long process... I had to retopologize a bit because the export from Mudbox was a pretty dense mesh. I think I was able to keep it pretty true to the original model. Then I had to add teeth, a tongue and eyes.

Here's what I came up with:

Weird, right? Not too bad for my first try at modeling mouth parts... at least in my opinion. Although, now it's time for the real test -- to see if they look really crazy when I try to make her smile or open her mouth. Fingers crossed.

Sketching on the plane

I was drawing some lions in my sketchbook on the flight into Frankfurt and a family with two little girls was sitting next to me. The older girl on my left didn't say a word to me, but kept looking intently at my drawings, then finally looked up at me. I smiled and she pointed at my notebook. When I handed my pen over and asked if she wanted to draw something, she carefully drew a heart on the page. From then on, we were immediate friends. She told me her name was Emma, she's 5, her parents are 41 and 44 and all about her pet chickens and her old dog. At one point her parents had to tell her to stop trying to use me as a pillow and to stop trying to speak to me in German. So adorable.

spider rig

This is my latest rigging project. It still needs some tweaking but I thought I'd put up the little animation test I did. I tried a new way of skinning this rig and a different way of painting weights by selecting vertices and flooding them to individual joints, which actually was more successful than my last project. 

Ideally, I'd also like to still tweak some of the weight painting on the verts, put in some deformations, add more flexibility in the leg joints, more controls for the body (which you can't see in this video) and texture the little critter... In progress! 

hands

So I've been drawing hands lately. Not sure why... but thought I'd share since I haven't posted in a while

escape plan

Or maybe lack of a plan... This is my final for my screenprinting class. I was thinking about the idea of "climbing the ladder" in terms of building a career and making money, and really, how going to art school is kind of climbing down that ladder for me. More like a fire escape than a ladder. Not to say that engineering is like a burning building that I need to flee, but... well, maybe it is. Or maybe art school is just a better fit? 

OR I'm going to end up penniless and homeless. Who knows?!? It's just all so exciting thinking about all of my bleak prospects!

When I tried to explain the idea behind this print in our critique, I was met with silence. Which made me feel like a gigantic Dumas. At the end of class, though, another girl who works for CalFire came up to me and said that when I was talking about the ladders and art and money, she felt the exact same way. So, either the silence was just weird art kids not understanding what I meant because they haven't yet experienced the world of personal finances, or the CalFire girl and I are both a couple of Dumases.

Senior Project

Here's my senior project. Another not quite finished piece, but I'm happy with the amount of work I did on it. I guess. Ha.

The title literally translates to "life" which sounds really pretentious, but I meant it more in the way I heard a lot of Russians say it. When something sad or really unlucky happened, they would let out a world weary sigh, shrug and say "Zhizn" as if resigned to living in an unfair world.

I know. It's still pretentious. But I'm in art school so bear with me.
...or I guess I'm not anymore!
I feel so lucky to have gone to school with so many talented and generous teachers and other students! I can't wait to see what all the CCA kids end up creating. And I'm so grateful for my family, friends and coworkers who have been there to support me in my crazy decision to go back to school.
I love you guys!

let me catch my breath

During my last two weeks of school, I finally found a chance to shoot my final piece with Charlie from last semester. I'm not totally happy with it. It could still use some more in-betweens and some of his faces aren't quite right, but it's pretty good for me!