This week, I continued to practice in blender by creating an Elephant head while following Henry’s tutorial in class. I used more sculpting tools this week, including the grab and snake tool. I created 3 spheres, one for the head and 2 for the ears, and grouped them together. I also created a cylinder for the nose and the lower eyelids to make it look like he was smiling. I feel as though the cheeks could be a bit fuller to exaggerate his expression a little more. I also found the trunk hard to create. I had to keep smoothing the mesh and resetting the polycount as the faces on the trunk were becoming very stretched and difficult to work with. I am, however, happy with how to the ears turned out and feel he looks very cute regardless of the changes that could be made.
I also started concept designs for the cute character assessment this week. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to create, so I started thinking about my favourite characters in film, including Gizmo from the Gremlins, Toothless from How to train your dragon and Baby Groot from Guardians of the galaxy.
I then had the idea of creating a model based on a childhood memory of playing he loves me, he loves me not by picking the petals off daisies. I drew 2 different concepts, one where she picks the he loves me petal, and one where she picks the he loves me not petal. I knew I wanted to stick with this idea and created another concept with the two different outcomes in the same pot.
After these concepts, I decided I wanted to add another element to the model to create a small story. Instead of her picking the last petal and ending up with the he loves me petal, I drew another petal on the top of the flowers head, making it look like she forgot one. To make this clearer, I designed another character in the background (the bee) to make it look like he is about to break the bad news to her.
References
After talking to Henry, we decided the design was a bit too simple, so instead of having a bee in the background, I started to design a garden gnome. I love the small gnomes in Gnomeo and Juliet and knew immediately I wanted to use them as a reference. I also used south park characters as a reference as I wanted to give the gnome a very round and squished body shape.
Final references:
