Quick Facial...

Right well considering we've been off the last 2 days and I dont have maya at home I had to resort to doing more concept work to keep the juices flowing. I say resort, i actually really like the design aspect of a project, particuarly facial expression boards. I decided to do one for Cornelius because myself and Alec are still quite unsure of how we are going to achieve our gorilla mouths to represent something similar to that of wallace and gromit when they are open. An expression board is a good way of seeing how the mouth will deform from the simplest of movemnts to the more extreme. It gives a good idea of the blend shapes needed and how to actually construct the hollow mouth. Cornelius rarely opens his mouth wide unlike William but does still need the ooo, ahhh, eee sounds needed for lip syncing and quality of animation. A still mouth or a simple tube like style (which I used for Lil G in Cribbin) is far to simple and obvious for year 2. I believe we can achieve the wallace and gromit style mouths however it will take time and patience - but it will make it show reel worthy. Alec mentioned maybe modelling like 4 or 5 seperate mouths and changing them between frames however I think this may look to drastic of a change - I think blend shapes is the way forawrd. Anywho me and Ally Babes will discuss mouths tommorow and reach a soloution. Hopefully this quick facial expression board I produced today will help.....