25th of February to the 29th of February

Aims
Get Paris done! I know what to do I have all my research I just need to sit down, stop fretting over modelling for a minute and start doing some pencil work. You wouldn’t think this was hard for me as I hate the computer but it is starting to prove a little complex. Why? I do not know. Now on to the DRAWING!

Goals Reached
Picking up the pencil again I decided to tackle the scene from a different angle. Unfortunately that angle involved taking out Café de Beignet and using a much more obviously Mucha inspired landscape. In a very cliché twist of fate Paris’ central focus point is (drum roll please) The Eifel Tower. YAY! -_-
A HORRIBLE landmark to draw but I got a little help from one of the greatest children’s artists ever Richard Scarry! Tell no-one I just told you that. Seriously though. Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy World has been so helpful. It has soooo many different countries with the specific landmarks in each and all of the drawings are so vibrant and colourful. Who would have thought my Christmas present from 1989 would have come in handy during my final year of University? Richard Scarry, I love you.
I’m sad to have to cut out Café de Beignet but it really wasn’t working and the scene that I have come up with now feels much better and I have a colour palette for it in my head already too.
I had no idea what to do about the background behind the Eifel Tower as it looked horribly bare and I refused to leave it the way it was. I had another look through the book on poster art that I had found and grew quite attached to the idea of putting trees in the background as it would be easy to make the scene look like it has some depth using layers. Nice idea, but, THERE AREN’T ANY TREES THERE! Ah well, Richard Scarry did it so artistic license, baby!
I love drawing from all these different sources I feel like I’m learning more about the world of art around me and pulling little bits of it into the animation.

18th of February to the 22nd of February

Aims
Lani needs mapping and George needs Blend shapes.

Goals Reached
This week was shortened by a day as I got a lovely migraine on Wednesday and had to stay in bed until it was gone. I was really frustrated by this turn of events as I had specifically reserved Wednesday to do some work. I always get migraines on days that I clear to do a solid days work it’s so annoying.
I haven’t done the UV mapping on Lani as George’s blend shapes are taking a lot longer than I originally planned. I keep messing them up. For example my most frustrating mistake was to forget to just blend shape eyes then do the mouth separately on one of the expressions. It had taken a long time to make the blend shape and I really didn’t have the time to go back and do it again. It shouldn’t cause too many problems but I was angry because it was such a silly mistake to make.
The blend shapes are also taking a long time as George (as the main character) has a lot of expressions especially when he gets to Hawaii and has to interact with Lani.
It is alos a long process to get his moustache to work the way i want it too as it's awkward trying to move and select all the vertices. Below is a picture of the different ways i have moved George's moustache.

11th of February to the 15th of February

Aims
Model Lani so that she’s ready to be UV mapped and then blend shaped. I’ve dedicated this whole week to modelling Lani so it’ll be a great shame if I can’t finish her. It’s not too complex but I can see that I’ll probably be having problems with modelling her face. I ALWAYS struggle with modelling faces.

Goals Reached
I finished modelling Lani! Wahoo! I’m really pleased that I’ve managed to hit this goal as a little part of me was worried that I wouldn’t. There are a few things that need doing over the weekend but they’re easily within my reach.
However this week has not been without its problems. As I said I did have problems with Lani’s face and trying not to have any three sided polys in the model. I literally sat for hours trying to work out how the contours on her face would look as I was really struggling. To help me with this problem I used a reference picture (provided by Dave) of a model’s head and tried to copy what I saw. This worked really well and when I got stuck I also imported Adam’s model of George so I had an example of a good model to help me along the way.
I made Lani by mostly extruding faces where I would need different parts of her body. For example, I started with her head as this was going to be the hardest task for me and then extruded Lani’s neck then her chest and carried on like this. I found this worked quite nicely. I also found that I could copy the hands from George’s model and attach them to Lani. I had to change these quite a bit though because I felt that the thumb needed to be further round the hand.
I also took on some advice from Aminata while I was making the arms as they should twist slightly so that when you rig the model and put the hands to the side they should deform properly. I don’t know if I’ve twisted them enough but I really hope so. I’ll be passing the model onto Dave to be rigged so I’ll have to ask him if it helped at all.
I was quite pleased with the model. It’s a hundred times better than the model I made last year; I took a look at it the other day and was horrified. I think I’ve improved here and hope that it is something that I can build on further even though it’s not necessarily something that I want to specialise in.
I struggled a bit on Lani’s feet as they looked really square for a while and somehow a couple of polys magic ked themselves onto the sole of her foot. I have no idea where they came from. I was really pleased with the way the bow on Lani’s back came out as it looks like it has little creases in it.
Ah well, onto the mapping.

4th of February to the 8th of February

Aims
Draw out Paris; I have a good idea of where I’m going with that now so unless I have some major hiccup it should get done. Adam should have finished George and UV mapped him too so I’ll hopefully have him this week and at some point I need to begin Blend shapes. Sooner rather than later as we’re really behind with the characters right now. I also need to check with Kyle to see if he can still model Lani for me.

Goals Reached
Adam has finished modelling and mapping George and he’s done a great job. The model looks so nice and I now have a UV map to start texturing the little guy on too.
That hiccup I was talking about, it happened. I asked Kyle how long it would take him to model Lani as he’d said he wanted to see Adam’s model before he made the little girl and he’s said it’ll take about until the last week of term. That’s way too long and I don’t have that kind of time. Therefore I’ve taken it on myself. It might not be as good as Kyle’s model but I need Lani soon and I’m pretty sure I can do it. I have to do it. I’ve spoken to Dave and he’s given me a picture of his mermaid’s head as I find it very hard to get contours right around the face. Ross has also been saying that it is not good to use three sided polygons so my aim next week is to try and make Lani with as little three sided poly's as possible, if any at all.
I’ve done a quick texture test on George to make sure the UV mapping is ok as Adam was a little worried about it but it all seems fine to me so it’s all systems go there.
Paris unfortunately has been put on the back burner as I begin to model Lani so I haven’t met that target this week. Hopefully, if I really power through this Lani will be done in the next week or so. It also means however that all the journey scenes from here on out will be running late. I’m going to have to use the holidays to catch up on them, no skiing break for me. -_- (I’m actually really sad about that) Above is the beginnings of Paris with the very Mucha inspired border. I think it's a huge improvement from what i had before.

28th January to the 1st of February

Dad has gone into hospital earlier than expected. For some reason he’s going in this week and it’s caught us all by surprise. He’s pretty nervous about it as it is his third bypass operation, he didn’t seem so at first but I think it’s getting to him now. I’ve been trying not to think too hard about it as it’s a pretty serious operation and dad is not as young as the optimum age anymore. My parents have been really playing me for the fool a bit about the whole thing. I nicked a book on the heart conditions dad has from their room so I’m really quite clued up about the whole thing. I’ve been having to travel up to the hospital by train a couple of times that has disturbed the work a bit and the film has been pushed to the side for a while as it is easier for me to write my dissertation on the train journey. I’ve got a fair amount of it done and my regime of doing an hour a night seems to be paying off as I have a large chunk done already. I’ve also spoken to Jared on several occasions and everything seems to be going ok. I’ve sent the basic summary and chapters I have completed to him for formative I just hope that what I’m writing isn’t complete rubbish. The sooner I find out the better.