Blocking almost done.

So I'm almost done with the blocking for all of my shots. That means I have three weeks for clean-up animation. haha. Well, I'll get something to show for my senior show - it may not be a masterpiece - but hopefully it'll be good.

I start clean-up animation tomorrow. I'm excited - I hope things continue to run smoothly *knock on wood*.

In the meantime, here's a current block for my thesis. :)



Ok - back to work for me.

Animate, animate, animate...

That's the name of the game! :) Things are going well right now - so it's pretty exciting. I'm just animating / animating. My senior show is in just under 5 weeks - so I really need to have something polished in about 3 1/2 (in order to render).

The piece won't be done, but it'll be to a point where it'll be ok to show what my intentions are.

I'm super excited about it. I'll post up my updated work in progress in a bit. I just need to block out a few more poses. :)

- Teri

Rigging Nightmares

This past week has been a doozy. I've been trying to rig my characters so that I can start animating, and it seems that anything that can go wrong - will.

Chin up though - I may have just had a break-through with my advanced arm rig. Hopefully with this I can start animating next week. :)

Concept

Here is some concept work created for Gimme-a-brake.

Original Design of characters:
















Design by Teri Shellen - 2007

Here are some character designs for original process:







Original Head Designs: Teri Shellen
Body Designs: Thomas Yamaoka

This is a what they look like in 3D (faces):















Modeling completed by: Teri Shellen
Help with modeling clothes: Juan Carlos Cuadra
Advisement by: Chris Eckardt; Juan Carlos Cuadra; Matt Nava

Here's a full body shot of Chrissy




















A styleframe from the short:












Cars - bought from 3d02.com
Father - Alfred by Rodri Torres
Environment - temporary plate
Chrissy and Jack (little boy and girl) - by Teri Shellen

Early Concept for Environment by Thomas Yamaoka - originally based off of Toy Story 2 Environment:




Original Concept for Environment by Thomas Yamaoka
















I'll post up storyboards and animatic soon. :)

Gimme-A-Brake

An animated short about rivalry, life, and love at 30mph.

While riding along the highway, 4-year-old Chrissy notices a little boy making faces in the backseat of a car next to her. A battle of funny faces ensues, while avoiding getting in trouble with the parents. A rivalry quickly turns to friendship, and finally a sad goodbye, where quick-witted Chrissy pulls a fast move to get one last glimpse of her newfound friend, before departing their separate ways forever.

Basic Process and Intent
My focus is 3D Character Animation, however, my career goals mandate that I learn the process of creating a short from start to finish, therefore, the first semester will be dedicated to story, and modeling the characters and environments. The second
semester will be dedicated solely towards animation, and rendering.
I will model, texture, and rig my main characters (the boy and girl) – both are from one model, textured differently. The father character is a rig downloaded online: Alfred (downloaded from HighEnd3d) - which I will be using with permission from Rodri Torres (Thanks Rodri!)

Where I am Now

Hello, and thanks for visiting my site. :)

Currently I'm a student at Otis majoring in 3D Character Animation. I'm doing a 3D Animated Short for my senior thesis, so I thought I would document the process.

I'm actually in my last semester of school, and have been working on this short for a semester prior. So I thought I would do a quick synopsis of the short, and give you my to-date progress. From here on out I'll be documenting things as they come along.

Thanks!
- Teri Shellen