However I recently attended a Visual Effects Masterclass Ravensbourne. The masterclass was about Creature Animation. It was made apparent that there is quite a demand in industry for creature animation. It was then pointed out to me that why should I play it safe and just stick with a human character, I could play on this fact that there is a demand for creatures in the Visual Effects industry and use it as a tool by including it in my showreel. So I started to think, I thought that although feeling a lot more comfortable with character modeling and wanting to push myself I do not want to over do it and do anything too complex because the aim is for the model to be of a high enough standard so that it can be put into my showreel and be shown to people in industry. So I started to think what if the character that I came up with was to be an existing animal who's anatomy was not too complex. I started to go through some different ideas of animals and started to look at some drawings of them. After a lot of looking around at images of different animals I stumbled across some images of wolves. I then decided that I quite like the look of Wolves. Some of the images that I viewed made me feel that their is a very interesting type of character that comes with Wolves, I felt that they often look like they are quite sneaky and up to no good, they look like they have a bit of a temper on them and can be very dangerous, but then they have an appealing factor that makes you feel as though they can be trusted. So just by looking at some images I had got an idea of what type of character a Wolf is. From then on I was set, I decided that I am going to model a Wolf! The images below are some of my favourite images that inspired me to want to make my character a wolf.
I really like the pose in the image above and am thinking about having my wolf model posed in a similar way in my showreel.
I really like the colours wolf in the image above, especially the colour of the eyes. I am considering a similar colour scheme for my wolf.
I was thinking that perhaps making my wolf look different to your standard wolf. I still want to include the normal wolf features but was maybe thinking about have my wolf quite skinny so you can see the bone structure. The image above shows a look that I might go for.
In the image above I really like the scar above the eye. So again I am looking into maybe having my wolf look like he has been in a few fights.
After deciding upon making a wolf I thought that wolfs are animals not creatures so I was thinking that maybe when designing the wolf I could make him look more creature like. I still want it to be apparent that it is a wolf but if it is more creature like it will hopefully make it look more unique. So now that I had decided that I am going to model a wolf it was time to design the wolf and create the reference images or a model sheet that I could model from. For this task I wanted to use a stronger drawer than myself as I felt that I lacked the constancy of drawing the same character from all different angles. I think if I drew the different views of the same wolf them it would look like 4 different wolves. So I hunted my class for a talented artist. I had seen some of Niko Sierra's (fellow Ravensbourne student) concept artwork on Facebook and decided that I liked his drawing style, so I asked Niko if he would like to draw my wolf for me. He agreed and we started to talk about how I wanted the wolf to look. I explained that I wanted the wolf to look stylistic, look a bit creature like, and have a more 'cartoony' style. Niko showed me a lion design that he drew a while back just to see if that was a kind of style I would be interested in having for the wolf. I really liked the lion design and felt that that style kind of fitted with what I had in mind for what the wolf was going to look like. Niko started to draw some ruff shapes for the wolf and after going through a few different body shapes, I decided upon the one that I preferred the most. Niko then developed some more advanced designs of the wolf and I picked bits from some of the different designs and said can you put those bits together and thats what he did and we ended up with a wolf design that I couldn't wait to model. The images below show the final design for my wolf.
Niko also kindly drew me the wolf without fur so that I could get a better idea of the shape of the wolf when modeling. The image below is the image of the wolf without fur.
As you can see we made the wolf look kind of creature like, when looking at the wolf I sometimes think that it looks a bit like a werewolf. The wolf looks stylistic and has a 'cartoony' feel which is exactly what I wanted. We also made him look skinny and you can see some of the bony masses which makes him stand out from your average wolf. All in all Niko did a very good job, I appreciate his help and am really happy with how the wolf looks. Now its time to get modeling!
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