An older but more well drawn storyboard

With the project now nearing an end I was able to find one of my older but more neater drawn storyboards. Obviously the story had evolved and changed since then i.e. Cornelius no longer holds a shakespearian skull while talking, he is no longer standing on the rock when the cage was lifted and McGlone is present in the cage at the end with him when it comes lowering back down on top of them.

Old Storyboard

Here is the old storyboard that I first designed before the animation stage.

Animation stage...

Yesterday and today has been dedicated to animating McGlone in his first and esbalishing shot. The process was difficult due to limitations of my rig and weight painting. Due to time constraints I haven't been able to improve these aspects, however it is still in a usable state.

After I rendered out the animation sequence and occlution layer, I placed the images into After Effects, gave it a wave deformer to make it seem less solid, blurred it and added some 'noise' effects and the background.

Progress for today...

1) Continue with texturing and bump mapping...

Today's progress

1) Today I am experimenting animation without the IK handles on the arms. Weighing up the pros and cons of them, I feel IK handle arms maybe not be needed.

2) Smoothing seems to really slow the program down so I'm trying out the idea of lessening the smoothing to a small degree to see if it improves this problem.

3) Alec has demonstrated the process of making my character look like clay using the Blinn texturing and bump maps.

4) Modelling the broom for McGlone to use in his animation

5) Using the Blinn and bump mapping I have gotten started on McGlone's colours and bumping. However given this is my first attempt its probable that I'll be redoing it again in the near future.

6) Below is McGlone's kelt (or kilt, cant remember how you spell it) with a colour and bump map resembling finger and thumb prints.

7) Here I added the same thing on the socks...

Current Progress

Modelling of McGlone's body and head completed.

IK handles have been set up, no problems encountered (so far).

After over nearly a week I have come near completion of my Weight Painting after many trials and errors made. All that is required in this area is to finish up and perfect the quality of the squash and stretch aspect.

London Zoo

Tomorrow me, Alex and Dan will be visiting London Zoo to get some decent background footage and images for our final project and environment.