me-109

Plane number two:

Having gotten my head round Maya modelling after the spitfire, the me-109 was a slightly quicker build. It also didn't need the amount of detail as the Spitfire as it'll be in the background of most shots.

Now to look for clever ways to animate spinning propellers. after a few tests, just spinning them quickly isn't going to cut it!

Spitfire

After deciding to set the film during WW2 again, the previous props, such as the F-16, were no longer needed. This gives me the chance to make new ones. My background in CG before university was purely model making, so it's nice to finally have another go. Having not extensively modeled anything for over two years, and never modeled anything in Maya, there was a constant flow of online tutorials to get me through it. The following was done over two, pretty solid days of work.

Blueprints from Theblueprints.com. Has a huge range of almost everything.
Chopped them up and re-sized them to work from them. Ideally, cross sections
would have also been shown.

Beginning to block out shape

Possibly the hardest part of the modelling was the part connecting the wings
to the fuselage. 

After a lot of faffing around, merging verts by hand, the model was successfully mirrored. 

Almost complete model, apart from the interior which I plan to build on a
 bigger scale for any close-up shots

Wireframe - 9100 Polys

First attempt at the UV unwrap and texture. No idea how to use textures in Maya so this will need to
be revisited once i get advice on the subject

Overall, it was good fun getting back to the modelling. I plan to make a messerschmitt me-109 for some epic dogfight action. To Maya!

Grounded

So the final project is here. The initial idea for this film came from a series of stimulus. I had always intended to produce a final piece based heavily on music, and while watching the coverage of Glastonbury 2011, Coldplay’s ‘Everything’s Not Lost’ was played. The chorus of this song especially stood out to me, and thought it’d make good music to fall to (If such a scenario ever came up!)

This reminded me of to several other things I had seen recently. Primarily an amazing account of a World War Two bomber gunner that was shot from his gunner turret. He fell 12,000 feet without a parachute. He survived the fall after falling through pine trees and landing in soft snow. His account  describes the transition of thoughts as he falls. He states that after the acceptance of death, the fall was the most peaceful he had ever been, alone in his own little world, away from the war surrounding him.  

I had originality decided to give it a modern twist, however following tutorials will now take it back to the World War Two era. This also gave me a chance to get back to modeling and build a Spitfire! (To Follow Shortly)

This is the initial (Unfinished) animatic i put together over summer, so still includes the modern day items. Also, despite the inspiration from Coldplay, i decided to use a song by Barcelona, called 'Please Don't Go.'  The lyrics seemed more relevant, and after emailing them, they were happy for me to use the piece. 

Over the next few days I aim to put together a revised animatic, with slightly better timing so that i'm fully aware of the mammoth task that's ahead of me! 

Sufficiently inspired.

This evening has been spent stuffing my mind with the library of past Animation Mentor webinars. Definitely worth the look!

http://www.animationmentor.com/resources/webinars/

Time to get this ball rolling...

Or bouncing as it were.

First project of the year has been back to basics with bouncing balls and basic character work. It's good fun to revisit some of the projects that seemed so daunting back in the first year.

I mainly plan to use this Blog for the purely selfish reasons of posting all the inspiring animation related stuff that i find that i would have otherwise forgotten about. There may also be an update or two on the major project i'll be working on this year.

Will update shortly with an overview of my final project, and possibly even an animatic!