For the past week or so, I've been working on Hemmy's run cycle. He'll be running for most of the animation so I want to perfect it. I am pleased with my progress so far despite some little rigging issues I had. Next step will be to perfect the run, resolve some skinning issues that show up during the run cycle and later on  'combine' animations like run with turn, run with walk, walk with sitting etc. It's exciting to finally see him come to life. It's a slow and painful progress but a rewarding one at the same time :)

Here is the footage I've been using as reference.

I spent a bit of time analysing what could work best for Hemmy's expressions when it comes to facial rigging.  For this I drew a few extreme expressions using squash and stretch. It turned out that the best feature for his expression will most likely be his big eyebrows and his ears. It's best to keep his snout/beak more solid with a possible slight, tilt in case his face deforms completely and turns into a completely different character. 

I looked into facial muscles around the eye and forehead: the obicularis oculi (muscle around the eye), the corrugator (eyebrow muscle), the frontalis (the forehead muscle) and the procerus (muscle inbetween the eyes, just above the nose). Each of the muscles will most likely have separate controls or blendshapes. 

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! A friend's little westie dog joined me and my flatmates during our Christmas holidays and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to observe the dog's behaviour and movements. I've put together a short video starring Snowy with notes on her movements which will be a great help for me when I start animating. It was a nice break from my current skinning.  I will update my progress with Hemmy's rigging and skinning very soon after I complete it.

I also observed how her skeleton bent and deformed in different poses.

Today, I visited the Thai Dance Academy in North London where I filmed female dancers in practice. It was a very interesting experience witnessing such a special dance like this live rather than relying on ‘impersonal’ youtube videos. The dances consisted of both calm and more energetic moves which is exactly what we are looking for. We will definitely use a lot of the moves filmed for our animation. I would like to thank Mrs Poranee Johnston for her help and her crew of lovely dancers. (Sorry about the quality)