NatashaWalsh

Animation Student

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Final rendered head of Katie. Not too bad, but then again not great. I found this task quite difficult to overcome but I kept powering through, trying to fix it up to the best of my ability. Saying that, it has slight Katie resemblance from the side. From the front though I think it just looks nothing like her at all haha.

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Nearly there! #creepyface

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Difficulties Faced

I had such a hard time when it came to creating the nose and mouth areas. I found it difficult to create the nostril part of the nose just for different reasons.

Nose:

Katie has quite a button nose so it was hard to try and get that right. It also went up sightly at the front so I had to be careful to get that right so it didn’t look like she had a pig nose. I also thought the nostrils were hard to achieve as they go round and down and also in a bit.

Mouth:

Katie’s mouth from the side looks like theres a bit of a gap but it’s just the way her lip goes. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t achieve this look without either giving her a duck pout of having her mouth open slightly.

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I know it’s not difficult to create an eyeball, but Claire had suggested this tutorial to me and it was very simple and easy to create. I just wanted to create something extra for the head.

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Process of the ear:

1. Following the tutorial I drew around the picture of Katie’s ear.

2. Using a plane and the multicut tool, I drew out a rough version of Katie’s ear from my topology.

3. Adding in details.

4. Beginning the process of extruding the ear.

5. Attach the ear to the head.

The ear was difficult. It got quite confusing with all the different lines on the ear and having to try and extrude different bits different ways. 

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Ear Modelling

So this is the process that I went through to create Katie’s ear. By watching a tutroial, I then went on to draw the outlines on photoshop of Katie’s ear and then by bringing it into maya I was able to draw it out with the multicut tool and from there extrude it out.

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Ear Tutorial

Dylan suggested I look at this ear tutorial for modelling the ear. It was hard! Who knew how complex ears were. 

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Some progression shots of the head. I tried my best to keep good topology within the model. I think I achieved it well enough, around the eyes and mouth I was able to keep the circular ring pattern. 

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They make it look so easy! It’s unreal though.

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Tutorial

This was the tutorial Conánn showed us one day in class and I decided to use this one. It didn’t look too difficult to follow and the animator goes through it at a nice pace, not like some of the other tutorials I looked at. The only thing I will say I didn’t like as much about this one is the fact that he was creating some quite cartoony rather that photo realistic.

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So I got Katie to model and these are some of the photos I took of her, different angles, different facial expressions to see if I can capture the likeness of her.

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Every feel like this? All the time.

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The Hero’s Journey Anna McCraith, Natasha Walsh, John Hay, Matthew Hamill

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The important aspects of storytelling.

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Threshold Guardians

Threshold Guardians : As the hero approaches the threshold in which they would like to enter through, they’re most likely to encounter a threshold guardian which tests the character from continuing their quest. In Greek Mythology a 3 headed dog named Cerberus which guarded the door to the underworld in which the hero must pass this objective and continue their journey, much like the 3 headed dog in Harry Potter which guards the trapdoor to the Philosophers Stone.

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Harry Potter

Refusal Of The Call

In this case, it’s not actually the hero himself who refuses the call, it’s his uncle Vernon who refuses Harry from opening up his letters from Hogwarts. 

Meeting The Mentor

Hagrid is Harry’s mentor. The one who brings Harry on his adventure to visit the wizarding world that he belongs to and to tell him he is a wizard. Hagrid gives support and crucial information to Harry throughout his adventure. 

Crossing The Threshold

Harry literally crosses the threshold when he goes into Diagon Alley and into the wizard world, after both worlds were being separated by a brick wall. It is his first experience into the wizard world and Harry commits to the adventure in Diagon Alley by buying his wand and school supplies etc.

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So at the beginning looking at The Hero’s Journey, to get my head around the whole understanding of it I looked up some examples. I thought this was a good example of Toy Story, going through the whole film and giving examples of each section.