My animation is moving along nicely now. I have 50 seconds of shots completed. If any of my readers have done any animation, they will know that that’s some good progress. The way I decided to structure this animation was to have hand-built miniatures with CG characters animated on top of still images. This technique lets me crank out my shots pretty quickly. In other news I’m going to rename my animation. I discovered that the…

I’ve been going through my storyboards and making all those little props that I drew for my little characters to use. Luckily these aren’t taking too long to do and will only be featured for a few shots. Rust Resistant Umbrella Axe Specially Formulated Oil Can by H. M. Wogglebug All-Purpose Drying Fan (Slightly Used) Map of the Land of Ev…

I always joke with my wife about having ADD when it comes to projects. Maybe I’ll actually finish this Oz animation that I’ve been working on for probably 5 years now.

I forgot to post these. I’ve been working on my Trio of Oz miniature set. I’ve actually made more progress than this, but I’ll probably hold off posting any more until I finish. I’m hoping to be done by next week so I can start photographing it for real. I’ve also been re-working the storyboards. I’m adding a few things and tightening up some shots. It seems like when I do that it just gets longer…

Poor TikTok! Was tweaking Smasher’s rig and I decided to do a quick render. I’m really liking the way these rigs have turned out. Smasher’s hands now stay put on the hammer, and I have 2 goals that I move around to adjust the hammer rig. The hands stay rotated and fixed on it, and the arms move separate. Woot! I still need to UV texture Smasher.

I’m nearly done with all the models for my animation so I’ve started working on getting the miniature I’m animating on up to par. I decided that the clockworld was too bare and needed some nice little foliage to give it some depth. Here are some trees that I’m working on for it. Floral wire wrapped around in the shape of a tree. Then I coated the wire with a bunch of latex caulk. I bought the squeezable…

I’ve successfully re-rigged TikTok. He’s a lot easier to pose now. I’m so glad that Lightwave updated and rewrote its rigging system. This pose took no time at all to achieve. Some of the technical hurdles on TikTok involved the fact that his waist needs to stretch and move while the two halves of his body need to rotate independently as well. I also had a big issue with the rig popping and jiggling when I…

I will crush you! I finally got this rig working. So far it works like a charm. I’ve been having a lot of troubles with Lightwave’s rigging system. I’ve been playing around a lot with different methods for putting a system together. The problem is that there aren’t any good tutorials out there on Lightwave rigging, and some of the much needed tools are fairly new in the latest 9.x updates. I’ve got independent rotation set…

I’m getting really excited. I’m getting close to finishing up all the characters for my first scene. I think I will be animating by this summer! I started up this project in 2006 crazy enough. I’ve not been actively working on it all of that time of course. It had fallen by the wayside but in January I really started spending a lot more time getting everything going on my animation. I of course got married,…

Make sure and click the links to see the unsquished images. I didn’t shrink these down before posting. TikTok is nearly done. I’m finishing up on his texturing. I’ve just got to redo his mustache and finish up on some final detail work. I still need to do his backside more thoroughly too. The wind-up smasher is also coming along. I’m nearly done modeling him. I have to finish his riveting, do his UVs and texturing, and…

New Oz friends enemies coming soon!…

TikTok is rigged! He took me a lot less time than Scarecrow did.

I had a few people asking me about my scarecrow character so I figured I would make a post about him. Scarecrow in the books was always the one with the brains who could figure things out. He also briefly ruled the Land of Oz until Ozma took over. He’s afraid of fire, and water makes him soggy. In my animation he’s going to be more of a trickster. He’s smart, but also a little tricky…