textures pretty poor!!!

Texturing for the first time has proved difficult and slightly annoying especially because of the spike shapes extruding from willie. I have settled for this for now and will hopefully have time to improve it.

The model is done as you can see i worked hard on as this was my first time modelling and texturing and when i start rigging it will be the first time i have rigged, so this is all new to me. so wish me luck!!!!

The little hedgehog feet!!!!

These re the little and cute hedgehog feet, the feet of a hedgehog are very small and dinky and i have tried to create a accurate representation of the real thing.

arms!!

These are the arms of the character they are very simple but quite child like and works with the chubby character of Willie. They are chubby and small hands very much like hedgehogs.

The nose

This is the nose of the hedgehog i found hedgehogs have a long snout but a very small nostril area which i have modelled here. It seems to work and is shaped nicely in reference to the character designs.

The problems of modelling!!!!

Modelling a character for the time is proving to be more difficult than expected. The problems im having is the fact when i smooth the character the spikes of the Hedgehog are just not "SPIKEY" enough. This means i have to go into every part of of the geometry and maneuver the vertices around which could be a long and very boring process. :( Hopefully i can find a quick way around it and the character begin to take shape because i am new to modelling it can get a bit frustrating :( The hat and bag are pretty much completed though

friday night in :)

So i spent my friday night modelling and i got a bit of the character modelled and got the bag shape modelled pretty good.

Back to modelling character!!!!

So after that fairly quick modelling of the hat i am gonna get back to the character modelling or i may do the bag first :) I am slowly getting the hang of modelling and as soon as i start to see something emerge i feel a good sense of pride, which i never expected from modelling.

I have a fair way to go though and need to get going with it so wish me luck :)

Modelling the Hat!!!!

my tutor alex as he was checking up on my hedgehog modelling and i asked him whether it would be better to build willie's hat as part of the model or as a separate object and he suggested to model it as a separate object. So i started modelling the hat right at the end of class and after 20 minutes i got this which im pretty happy with it still needs a bit of smoothing but it actually looks like a cap.

i have started modelling....... and badly!!!!

I started modelling for real for the first time so i am modelling and learning from tutorials at the same time which can problematic at times. So i started with a cube changed vertices and extrudes faces a little bit. and this is what i got so far, poor i know but hey i will improve :P

schedule for project!!!!

This is some sort of schedule for my industry exercises project. Its a schedule that helps me plan out the time i have to do individual aspects of the project.

Red hat and bag i think ????

I was going through colours and spoke to alex and we both thought red was the right colour for willies hat and bag. This just states danger, anger, hyperactivity and simply looks cool and is my favourite colour so works perfectly.

It also reminds me of me when i went on my first visit to disneyland florida and for the whole 3 weeks i think i wore my red cap every day after my parents bought it on the first day, so just a little bit of myself in the character as well :)

Ok final design

This is my Willie Billiams a “A hyperactive nine year old on his first

visit to London Zoo with an obsessive interest in creepy

crawlies.”

He is an obese, hat wearing, ruck sack wearing, hyperactive 9 year old hedgehog who when scared or upset goes into his protective ball :)

The characteristics of an hedgehog are spikes, small arms and feet and small eyes and i have combined these characteristics into a cartoon character with the characteristics of a hyperactive 9 year old boy. the things that have been used to show a hyperactive 9 year old boy is a baseball cap on backwards and a ruck sac as well as a very volatile personality.

I like this character a lot because he has personality and visual appeal aswell as enjoyable to draw :P

Sketches of more obese child hedgehog :)

Look i created a obese, hat wearing, back pack wearing, hyperactive 9 year old hedgehog. How Kool am i :)

Hedgehogs Anatomy

I collected some research on the characteristics of a hedgehog and images of its anatomy just so can get the characteristics of a hedgehog but exaggerate them to create a personality that fits a young child and a hedgehog.

You cannot mistake hedgehogs for anything else. They are Britain's only spiny mammal. The spines are without doubt the hedgehog's most intriguing feature. A 1lb 5oz (600g) hedgehog has 5,000 - 6,000 spines. Many people do not actually know the colour of the hedgehog's spines. They are brown at the base, and fade to white at the top. If you look closely at a hedgehog you will notice that they have a white tint to them.

The hedgehogs legs are about 4 inches (10cm) long. You often cannot see how long those legs really are, because hedgehogs rarely extend them fully, and they are covered buy fur on the underbelly. With those legs hedgehogs can manage short sprints of up to 6mph. There speed varies on what they are doing. If they have somewhere to go, they will move at about 2mph. When they are foraging, however, their speed falls greatly, just a few starts and stops whilst they look for insects.

The hedgehog's head and body together is 8-12 inches (20-30cm) long. The hedgehog's tail is about 3/4 of an inch.

And how big are hedgehogs ears? About 1 inch (2-3 cm).

sketches

just a quick idea more to come

Hedgehog research.

Hedgehogs can't wear Hats!!!!!

I have read the brief so many times since it was given to us and to try and create an original character. So i took the brief and the description of the character it wants us to create and explored the extremes that these points could be stretched.

Willie Billiams – “A hyperactive nine year old on his first

visit to London Zoo with an obsessive interest in creepy

crawlies.”

creepy crawlies = spiders, insects, worms

Animals

hedgehog diet = spiders, insects, worms

this very sophisticated formula led me to think the brief does not say it has to be a human character and a hedgehog relies on creepy crawlies for there diet. therefore my character will be a child like hedgehog.

Decision??

Ok so after alot of thought and with the idea that i would have to model for each project anyway, i have decided to do the character design brief for my industry exercises project. Also i made the decision to create a character based on the brief of

Willie Billiams – “A hyperactive nine year old on his first
visit to London Zoo with an obsessive interest in creepy
crawlies.”

There is a lot of license for creativity for this character because of the vagueness of the description so i think i will be able to put my stamp on the character and emphasize the characters personality.

Project Decision!!

Ok i have a dilemma for this particular project the fact that i consider myself primarily a character animator,animator and character designer. This poses the problem for which brief i shall pick for my industry exercises project, on one hand i know i am a character animator maybe the closest to that is the moving image sky arts project but for some reason it does not appeal to me.

However having a love of designing a character and animating it therefore giving the character a personality and charisma has always been a major part of my work. Although we will not be animating the character my character animation skills would help create a personality for the character.

So i have a decision to make and quick maybe i will speak to a few people and get some advice?