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Writer's pictureSimon Hard

My Final USW Year...

The initial brief of the year was to complete a sting. I partnered with modeller Jack McCaver to create an E4 sting, we got together to come up with initial ideas. Upon deciding on a purple snail that gets squished jack begun creating the model while I researched for reference and rigging. Once jack had the model done I started working on the rig.

My core skills and focus are in animation however I have basic rigging ability. I'm happy with the outcome, also applying a squash and stretch rig to the spine enabling me to truly get the feel i was after. As its a snail it was vital that I had a slimy slick movement to it. once i completed the rig I was able to sink my teeth into the animation. Following the workflow of animatic, blocking, spline and final animation I was able to get a final product that i was happy with. The final animation is short, has a clear punchline and met the brief. Although I would have liked to have spent a bit more time on the boot itself and the squish.

From this I moved straight into pre-production for the final major project, consisting of Collaborative and personal projects. the main collab project that i jumped on board as an animator was for 'The Unsung' A project directed by fellow student Jakub Kupcik. All of the scenes are captured in the Vicon motion capture suite but would need clean up in post. This was a new concept to everyone on the course so I had taken it on myself to trial and error the clean up process in motionbuilder and then maya. This turned out to be the longest process as it had many hurdles. Transferring the data to the rig just wasn't working out. After a few weeks I finally had it working with the data and the rigs created by our rigger Sergi Carrion. Once the data started getting transferred to the rigs and put into maya I was able to start work on the clean up. Once it's all completed it will be an epic mini feature still waiting on the final renders. (Not final Render)


the other collab is a brief given by me to a future employer to complete an accurate and textured model captain morgan themed bar for festivals, also creating the signage and menus. This was all done in maya and completed in around a week to two. This was an industry brief that was assigned and resulted in me gaining my first post graduate job.



The first of my personal projects was a sequence of a tiger relaxing in a suburban area taking a rest on top of a car. I had to get creative with the reference and search for cat videos as well as tigers as i couldn't find the accurate references i needed. In using all these I was able to get together a final piece that I am happy with the progress of. Although it is not finished it is not far from the final render. There is still work to do on the tail, jump down and walk from this progress playblast. I am responsible for all the animation.

My other personal animations consist of two main royalty free rigs, Jasmine and Ray. First of Using a scene from "The Russel Howard Hour" where he interviews children and always receives a comedic response as only children can. Using the Jasmine rig I created a small piece where she is explaining what a narwhal is. Although the original reference is already amusing it didn't translate very well when animated so I had to use my artistic licence to modify. I am still working on this piece as it feels too parallel but am happy with the progress.

The final Personal is a short using both Ray and Jasmine rigs. It has Ray relaxing at a bus top on his phone as jasmine walks by. He glances then upon realising darts back up in awe and follows her path as if he saw a goddess walking by. This one is still in early stages so WIP to follow.

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