Huesos - Character Design (Modelling tests)

Here is a version of Huesos with the main part of the suit finished:

Those two are the same suit, but shaped differently, the one with the head on top is a bit more stylized, more elegant, and the other one is more manly and real. I feel that the manly one is too big and squarish for him, and that the elegant one causes less impact or respect for him. He is supposed to be informally elegant, causing respect and a good impact, but without looking big and tough like a wrestler, also not looking like a slim discreetly powerful ninja. Just like a secret agent: fit, athletic, elegant.

Thanks for reading. 

Fernando

Huesos - Character Design ("Concept Art")

I made a few drawings to help guide my modelling:

HEAD

I also made some full body tests:

After started I modelling and thinking about these drawings, I thought that he looked too general, like a secondary character with no grace or actual sympathy, so I decided to go for the sleeveless suit and to get rid of the pants. I'm still deciding that, but I think it gives him more personality and character. 

For the suit I did some research, and found the Cerruti Plain Twill:

I used this suit as my modelling reference, but again, with a bow tie. 

Fernando

Huesos - Inspiration and planning

I've been struggling lately with the design of Huesos. He is the first character I'm making for the film, and what I picture in my head doesn't look at all to the different tests I've done.. maybe because in my head he looks 4 years of experience cooler than what I can do right now... with that said, I've done some "concept art" for him, just as a reference to guide my modelling and keep designing in 3D. Surprisingly, and shamefully (if that's a word) I'm faster at modelling than at drawing, and better too.. I suck at making concept art, I've gotten better, but I don't practice enough and I don't intent to make a huge leap on my skills just to design the characters... that's why I chose 3D, well I chose it for many more reasons than just because it has one more "dimension" than 2D, but the final product is going to be vectorized in three planes that cannot be faked by ME just using two and it's not necessary, again, for me. I will practice, later, I've no rush :)

My rush is to actually get the models done, hopefully texturized, to jump into rigging.. because the huge leap I do have to make before the end of summer is in my coding and rigging abilities, I want to have my two characters ready to animate, flexible enough to avoid major rigging needs once the storyboard is locked and my DOP is done with the layout. Also to have two good character for me to keep practicing animation!

The planning of Huesos (start here to skip the intro)

Now to the actual point of this post. 

I already mentioned his personality, but I will summarize it here again:

- Funny

- Smart

- Mean

- Fast

- Very very confident

- The best of all agents

INSPIRATION

My inspiration, as I said in my first post, comes from the Mexican tradition of dead, but I've changed most of those traditional aspects; in reality the only thing visually related to the mexican image of dead is that he is an skeleton. 

Here are some images that helped me shape him, and that inspired the look of the character:

This one is from a jazz band I found on Facebook, I don't know their music, but I liked the cover image. 

The lady and the reaper. Oscar nominated film, from a spanish studio, I recommend it a lot! It has inspired many things in my film, so many that I'm working to avoid appropriation.. at least in an obvious way ;) 

From mexican artist Carlos Ortega

PERSONALITY

I already mentioned it at the beginning of this post, but I will expand on it. 

Huesos is a smart character, he breaks the rules because he knows how to do it, he is the best and can humiliate other agents and play with people.. just because he has the genius to do it. He is mean and groovy, like a genius blues trumpet player in the late 1950's... The groove of Ray Charles with the sarcasm of Gregory House. 

Bonejangles is a good example.

House is a big inspiration for the personality of Huesos, specially for his philosophy of breaking the rules, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.. and if it's fun it's even better. He likes to create challenges. 

CUSTOME

Huesos' clothes are a big part of his personality. He is meant to be elegant but not too formal, always looking good but being comfortable.  This is the part that has been causing me problems lately. I've done research about different types of suits, tuxedos, etc. I ended up deciding that the best influence for an agent, is another agent, at least in this case: 

Daniel Craig, as James Bond. 

He is going to be using a black suit, very formal and elegant, with a bow tie

a white shirt underneath, and probably the suit will be sleeveless.. I had many different tests for this, and decided that the best option was to have him showing the bones of his arms and just having the jacket of the suit, no pants or anything else, just a white shirt, black suit (just the jacket) and bones.. and the bow. 

This is what I have so far, but I still need to decide what the final design is going to be, and it has to be soon. Any input would be very appreciated :) 

Fernando

Huesos Rig Test

I started testing the facial rig for Huesos. Most of his animation will be driven by the face, so it will be the most complex part of the rig, specially fir his huge eye brow and his big eyes, that will be very flexible to achieve cartoony expressions:

I used lattices and clusters for this test, and it worked but I think I will use joints for the eyes, and I will still use some non linear deformers for the cheeks and the mouth.

I will expand the character a bit more later.

Fernando.

Huesos

Huesos is the name of the agent, it means bones. After naming him I realized that his name in English would be agent bones, but I won’t add james to it, it will just be cheesy, I will stick with Huesos!

His personality is kind of specific, he is like a rockstart, he is confident, fast, mean, skilled, like a james bond with a huge ego. He is the character that I have developed the most, and I already started doing some 3D models for him, the head I think is pretty much finished:

I’m working on the body, but that will be a later post, the design is getting tricky atter a few days of modelling!! 

Cheers, 

Fernando

The characters

As I mentioned before there will be two main characters, the old man and the agent. I will probably have a kid at the beginning, to trigger the story of the old man, but that’s still in process so I won’t touch on that for now. I might also have some people walking on the streets of the town, to keep it real... On the technical side of this: I will only create the two main characters, I won’t even think about the other ones, I will probably borrow a kid from somebody who has already made one for another film, or just use a free rig. For the people on the street, I might do the same, but I will probably use morpheus dressed up; some people already did some of that work for me, and it’s awesome!

Check their blog: http://ecmwp.blogspot.mx/

Morpheus is free to use, as long as I mention Josh Burton, the creator, on the credits, or I might ask his permission directly... but I will still have to research more about copyright and commercial use. for now I will focus on the main two characters, the worst it can happen is that I model an extra character, or morph my old man.. or use sound to fake everything I can’t do visually. In the end sound will probably do some magic anyway!!

Fernando

The Story

The story, specially the plot is still in development, but the whole idea will be based on a saying, which I don’t know if it’s mexican but I learned it as a child and it is always there whenever I have to make a decision, in spanish it reads “más vale maña que fuerza” and it means that it is better to be smart than strong, it basically talks about being tricky and finding smart ways to solve things instead of rushing and going violent.

The story involves two characters, an old man and a skeleton which will be my version of a grim reaper, inspired on all the history I wrote about before. The skeleton is part of an agency that is in charged of the dead of the living ones, they make all of the paper work for people to die, for whatever reason, when their time is up, they have to sign the deal with the agency. The skeleton is the best of all of the agents, he is fast, smart and mean, he uses modern technology and is always dressed elegantly, like a catrín, but with the skills of a bad-ass secret agent. The old man lives in a small town, inspired in what we call in Mexico “magic towns”, he is quiet, cute and humble, but very very smart.

.... Now the actual story..

The story starts when the skeleton gets the mission to kill the old man, and when the skeleton sees the man he decides to have fun with him as he sees him as an easy target. The skeleton wants to kill the old man with a game, or a trick, something fun, but he didn’t know that the old man is smart enough to avoid his trickery. The skeleton’s ego is compromised now and he takes the challenge of killing the old man in the most awesome and cool way possible... In the end the skeleton will be forced to learn a lesson of humbleness and smartness, realizing that “más vale maña que fuerza”.

Any comments, or name ideas for the old man will be appreciated! (The skeleton is already named)

Fernando