Major Project: Concept Art for Props and House Variations for Road Set

Fig 1: Variations of Houses for the Road set

Fig 2: Designs for Mr Plimsoll's Bag

Fig 3: Concepts for the Photo above the Fireplace in Mr Plimsoll's Living room

Here are some concepts for the bag Mr Plimsolls carries around in the first act of the film, variations of the houses that will be seen in the background of the road set for the same scenes and thumbnail ideas for the picture of Mr Plimsolls' wife that will be in a picture frame above the fireplace in Mr Plimsolls' living room.

The House variations are just to give the background of the road set a bit of character as Mr Plimsolls walks by. The houses are similar but the differences are in the features of them, and my plan is to take 3-4 of the designs to use for that set.

For Mr Plimsolls' wife I wanted to go for a character design that was quite hidden in terms of who she is, but for her to be portrayed as a positive person in Mr Plimsolls' life so having her also smile but be smiling in a way that is opposite to Mr Plimsolls, instead of being creepy, her smile is more genuine.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls- Finessing the Skinning on Limbs and Pose Space Deformers

Fig 1: Example of Pose Space Deformer working in Shoulder and Knee of Mr Plimsolls

Fig 2: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 1 

Fig 3: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 2

Fig 4: Elbow is still able to bend naturally despite the influence from the Rubber Hose Rig

Sorting out the Pose Space Deformers onto Mr Plimsolls, I was able to give him natural movement in his shoulders, elbows, knees and hips without the geometry buckling. While I'm pleased with the final results it did take me a while and multiple back up saves to sort out parts like the knee to make sure that the other parts of the model like the shorts weren't doing anything weird like suddenly pop out when other poses in the legs happen, like raising the leg in a forward rotation.

After I was at a point where I was happy with how the model bent, I put Mr Plimsolls into a couple of poses only to see that the arms weren't flowing correctly in an arc when the elbow control and the flex controls are pull out together. So I went back into the Paint Skin Weights Tool to update the weights in the arm to allow fluid motion both when the controls are pulled separately and when they are moved together as well.

Major Project: 3D Environment- Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow Progress so far

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls Bungalow

Fig 2: Close up on Roof

Fig 3: Close up on Fence and Gate

Fig 4: Model of Tree used in the Foreground

Here is the process of Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow at the moment, I still need to add the overgrown nature of the house, ivy on the roof and on the house, and the overgrown bushes that cover the front of the house. There is still some modifications that need doing on the gate panels and the windows still need developing.
Despite this I'm pretty happy with the progress so far with this scene, even if its still in the developing phase and in need of some refining.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 02

Fig 1: The Road Mr Plimsoll's lives on

Fig 2: Mr Plimsoll's Living Room

These two concept arts depict the road Mr Plimsoll lived on and his living room for the ending scene. The idea for the road was that it would rotate as Mr Plimsoll's walks down the road, so to emphasise that idea the scene was drawn using curves and perspective was taken into account.

Mr Plimsoll's living room was design with the idea that Mr Plimsoll's was just a man who went through the trauma of losing his wife. To show that he reminisces the time he spent with his wife, I had the idea of the room having many picture frames with pictures of them as a couple. The run down aspect is more due to the fact that because of his old age he wasn't able to keep up with the house keeping. As well as preferring to spend the majority of his time outside of his house, wandering around the town instead of staying indoors wallowing in loneliness.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls Model Progress- Rigging and Skinning

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls' Rig

Fig 2: Mr Plimsolls' Skinning

Fig 3: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on skinned Mr Plimsolls 01

Fig 4: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on Skinned Mr Plimsolls 02

After the Submission for the Minor Project, I went back to refine the rig on Mr Plimsolls as Alan informed me that there was some rotations in the Shoulder and Elbow joints which lead to me redoing the entire rig. While attempting to fix this issue I realised that there was an issue with the pole vector constraint when adding a pole vector to the IK Handle.

I came to the conclusion that it was due to the way that the arms were originally positioned, they were slightly sloping downwards instead of being in a strict T-pose. Just to experiment I made some standard three joint arm rigs and applied IK handles to them to find out that the reason why rotations would jump on the joints happened due to the joint placement being incorrect.

To combat this I made some slight changes to the model's geometry by straightening out the arms and placing the joints in a straighter position making sure to make the only rotations made were in the joint rotations and not the world rotation. While this helped with the IK Handle issue I had slight complications with the Pole Vectors still, However after carefully following one of Alan's rigging tutorials for Jetpack Jones I was able to get it working properly.

I had a few issues with setting up the "Rubberhose" rig too, the issues mainly involving the connections and the constraints with the ribbon spines and another issue of them causing weird rotations to happen to the joints. However after fiddling with the rig, and redo the ribbon spines more times then I can count, I was able to fix the rig so that there are no sudden rotations in the joints and the controls work with the ribbon spine without that much of an issue

Overall while rigging Mr Plimsolls as been a somewhat difficult and way more convoluted then I originally thought, I'm quite happy with the progress if made with him so far, even if the issues I've had with him as pushed me back time-wise then what I would of liked.