Dana's Hospital Gown

Dana has few outfits in this film including this hospital gown.

now for some clothing textures

Now that Dana's day clothes are modeled, I just need to texture them and then check again to make sure the cloth physics are working properly.  After this there are 2 other outfits to make for her, possibly 3.

clothing is so far in working order

Today I started on creating Dana's day clothes. So far the skirt looks to be in working order, though I may adjust it to react quicker.

On to clothing

Now with rigging done, I'm working on Dana's clothing. she'll have about 3 changes of clothing in this film.  And to make sure everything is perfect I'm now testing the cloth reactions on everything before placing it on the model.  Here I made a simple model of a pleated skirt to see if it would hold it's form when cloth is applied.

Skinning in progress

With Dana's rig completed, she's now being skinned (connecting her body to the rig for those not in the know).

Rigging Dana

Rigging of Dana has begun.  I'm trying to make sure she has a full range of motion

Dana faces

Just a few face tests with captions.  I want Dana to have a full range of emotions.  There's still so little to do and so much time...wait, strike that, reverse it.

Just a nice Dana image

This image is from my terrible camera phone, but I loved how it came out regardless so I thought I'd share.  I like how Dana's blendshapes are coming out and how peaceful she looks in this image.

Main textures comlpeted

With the main color, bump, and specularity done I'll be moving on to blend shapes and rigging soon.  At this moment I don't have the subsurface scattering applied, I'll do that after rigging.  However I believe I'll post a test render of Dana with it.

Texturing Dana

After unwrapping, it's on to texturing.  I'm starting with the main colors first.  once I'm done I'll move onto bump maps, specularity, and so on.  Here's a first look at one of the areas I'm currently working on.

Prepping dana for texturing

Now that the main model is completed, I'm moving on to unwrapping before texturing.  The checkered pattern helps me avoid stretching in areas while mapping everything out.

Dana: final version

If you saw the video I posted a few days ago, you already know of all the attempts done on Suicide Friends.  This project has been going for years, and the recent design proved to be (though my favorite) the most taxing.  The traditional animation with Roger Rabbit styled lighting was taking too much time with just one person working on it.  If I continued, this film wouldn't be done for another 8 years.  So I decided to try a digital Dana again.  As the video showed, I did this once and the result wasn't to my liking.  She looked like an alien, but it was the best I could do at the time.  I stopped on the idea of doing a full CG film until I had more practice.  After working on "the Grim" (http://thegrimanimation.blogspot.com/) I believe I've had a good amount of practice and rebuilt Dana.  The result really pushes the first one aside (I honestly feel weird even comparing with these images).  Someday I'll do a traditionally animated film, but I'll wait until I have a crew of animators.  Until then, I'm happy with how Dana is coming along.

Suicide friends evolution

Here's a look at some of the testing that has gone into Suicide friends.  The project has gone through many changes, once being planned as full stop motion, again as full CG, and another time as a mix of media.  After a lot of testing I found that I can produce stop motion and CG in the time I'd like for this film, but 2D on my own, especially in the desired style, takes a lot of time.  With the amount needed for this project and being done on my own, this film would take about 8 years to complete.  So now I'm looking to produce this film using CG and stop motion.  I'll greatly miss the 2D aspects, but someday when I have a large team I'll tell another story in that style.  I have no shortage of ideas.

Keep Moving Forward

Suicide friends is still moving forward.  However, some things are being modified to make sure this film makes it to completion.  This film is a very small production, and by that I mean a crew of one person at the moment.  After crunching some numbers I found that this film at it's current state would take around 7 to 8 years to complete.  It may sound crazy, but I'm still enthusiastic for this film and I'm determined to find a way to shorten that time.  I'll keep everyone updated on the progress.

Keep Moving Forward.

At one point the option of having Dana as a stop motion puppet was looked into. this idea stopped to have her look closer to the storyboard images and sketches along with bring a number of styles to the film. This is a rough sketch of what would have been Dana's skull which would have been covered by a silicone or foam latex skin.

set creation continues!!  Furniture and doors painted. Floor finished. now for the little details

Creation on the hospital interior continues. tiles are being placed and once they're all down a clear acetate will be placed over the floor.  so far only the area under the table has this.

Today construction continues on another set for Suicide friends.  Here's a look at the current set in progress, the outside of a hospital office.  After the walls and floor are placed basic furnishing is added on the small set to get an idea of the direction it's headed.  After this the walls and furniture will receive more detail along with any needed props like lamps, potted plants, hospital reading material, and so on.

Suicide Friends now also has an official facebook page! like the page and share it with friends!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Suicide-Friends/366977196691384

a few days ago I filmed one of the miniatures for the film at Private Eye Studios.  Like everything else in this film, the city set was created to reflect how the main Character Dana sees the world.  The real world is seen as dull and gloomy with weather that constantly looks like it's about to rain heavily.  This scene will go through further editing before being finished.   

Today's the day of the Suicide Friends animated film blog launch.  This project has been going for some time and has a bit of history with it.  As a mixed Media film it will incorporate all I know in animation and film making from Stop-motion, 2D animation, CG animation, and other effects techniques.  Follow this page as I'll post updates and behind the scenes information as this film makes its way to completion.