Spyro!

It has been a long time since I last posted anything here and I have since left Razor Edge. I spent this past year working at Kitazaru Inc. a branch of SanzaruGames.

During this time Sanzaru and Kitazaru were working on Spyro 3: Year Of The Dragon!

What an amazing experience, great people, a great company, a great project! I was one 3 Riggers on the project and the only one working on site. I built at least half of the character rigs for the game and edited or contributed to the rest. These cutscenes heavily feature Bianca, one of the first characters I worked on for the game and a personal favorite.

To list all the characters I worked on would be harder than listing the ones I didn't. Of those visible in the cutscenes I built the rabbit, Spike (big orange guy) and Bianca completely. I also did around half the work on the Rhynocs (generic enemy variants)

Starting to show some things

My professional work will soon see the light of day! Razor Edge Games has put up their Steam Page including a teaser trailer containing some of my work.

Mad Science Girl Drawing

I have really been trying to learn how to draw Steampunk characters lately. I have drawn a character inspired by the webcomic, Girl Genius.

sketching interlude

I filled a few pages with random poses before I did one that I like.

For some reason I am bad at drawing hats, I did that side drawing to help me figure out the structure.

Couldn't wait

I guess I got impatient, I just couldn't wait to put up this Gargoyle

The animation is still under way but for now here is a basic demo of the Gargoyle rig

Gargoyle Update

well the rig is now functional, face included. I will be creating animations to demonstrate the various capabilities of this rig.

This has been a lot of fun to work on.

Starting the JointFace experiment

So far the joint placement seems to be working. I will begin skinning the new joints tonight and hopefully the gargoyle will be smiling and snarling by Wednesday night.

Skinning Gargoyles

The Gargoyle is fast approaching completion. I am starting to pose the rig and clean up the skinning.

The Gargoyle is Coming Together

the gargoyle is starting to really come together. I have done the basic rig and started the skinning. I intend to add facial controls after I have the basics done.

I will be attempting to create a jaw system that should allow me to lock the lips closed or let them open. This will be my first attempt at facial rigging without blendshapes.

I have been itching to try this for months now but I until now I have always been too busy. After spending all summer trying to figure out the best way to rig bird wings and learning Pymel.core I have finally found the time.

upgraded gargoyle

I just wasn't satisfied with the old model so I built a new one. You cannot see it here but the rigging is well underway too. soon this gargoyle will be dancing and jumping and doing kung-fu!

a Steampunk Interlude

I haven't been working much on my Gargoyle rig lately and the rigs I make for work are still covered by my NDA so instead please enjoy a few of my pencil drawings

This is intended as a vaguely Steampunk raygun, it is also one of my first attempts to ink one of my drawings (since the ink disaster of 2009)

and to wield the raygun I drew this adventurous fellow

This drawing is done start to finish with a ebony pencil, I decided to hide his far arm because any other pose seemed to ruin the silhouette. I drew the hint of a jetpack on his back and he is clearly not much of a marksman based on the way he holds his raygun. 

A new project

So for a few months now I have been working as a character rigger for Razor Edge Games. I have produced several animal and robot rigs in this time but all of them are covered by my NDA so I cannot display them here.
Instead, I have decided to make a full character rig from scratch and post it here.

This is the first image of my Gargoyle character, inspired by one of my favourite shows from my childhood. I loved Gargoyles as a kid and I wanted to make one of my own.

I initially intended to give him large bat-like wings, but after considering the complexity of wing rigs and the schedule I have set for myself, I will be building the wings separately and adding them later.

here is a slightly clearer shot of my model

My First Attempt at UI Design

 Though the company I made this for ended up taking a different direction I am quite pleased with how it turned out
I used some stock images to stand in for actual camera footage.

If that company wants me to take this down the just need to ask, but for now I will assume they don't mind

DemoReel spring2015

Back in Action

Some interesting thing have happened in the last year, I worked at a major local studio, I flew to Vancouver to attend Vancouver Film School and improve my skills and now I am back in Ottawa until I find a new job.

This is the Short film that I made during my time at VFS. I wrote, directed, animated, modelled, rigged, lit, and textured it my self. I am not allowed to reuse the riggs because they belong to VFS but I hope to build new ones and perhaps make a sequel to this film in the future.

Oni Project Update

after a lot of sketching, and experimenting with different costumes and designs i have come to the conclusion that the Oni character is not going to be done any time soon. I really want to include some musculature and traditional Japanese clothing but those elements are fairly complicated to make rigs for so I am placing this project on the back burner. actually it was already on the back burner compared to my actual job so now its on the back burner of my back burner.

I will be starting a slightly less complicated project shortly.

I have not been updating much (at all) this summer and fall but i hope that this is coming to an end. It looks like I will not be working weekends in the near future, and assuming I don't get into any more car accidents, i should be able to start posting more regularly.

Demo Reel April2013

Side Pages Posted

I have created a page of basic "Rig Tips" for students and animators who don't have know much about Maya Rigs. I will continue to expand this page with more tips and tricks as I get more rigging experience. I hope that it will be helpful to people.

I have also started a character design page, where I will post some of the drawings that litter my sketchbooks. On this page my readers/viewers will get to see my thought process in action.

Starting the Oni Project

I sketched out an interesting character while watching TV.  There are some things to work out, but it may be an interesting character to model. It's supposed to be an Oni, a creature from Japanese folklore, similar to an Ogre.

I will try to draw up some model sheets and post those as well. This may be the first in a series of character rigs.

a 3D animation scene from my short film. I created the Models, Rig, Textures, Lights, Animation...etc.

This animation was created in Maya2013.