Design by Alain Desrochers

Designed by John Neill.

Disney version.

The Ork was one of the first characters that I had a solution for, but the hardest to draw. I ended up building a hasty "mesh-sketch" in A:M to show how the tail works.

I don't know Kelly, I think Alain's design is pretty nice. It has a lot of personality.
I'm having a hard time seeing how your Orc works, even from the 3D illustrations.
What if the Orc, uses his tail like a helicopter blade? And the wings, like you say, are just directional stabilizers?

Those are good looking crows, Kel.

CROWS? Wait 'til you see the crows! [LOL]

Holmes: The tail feathers ARE a nested series of 'helicopter' blades. Looking back on my comments, I see that I was not clear. But where a helicopter has four or five long, thin blades, the Ork has perhaps twenty or so on each fan. Like a jet turbine. I see us using transparency maps, and bump maps to detail the feathers.

I like Alain's Ork too. I'd have no problem with grafting it onto this tail system. What I was trying to solve here was getting to a tail that could [believably] whip up a storm of tornado proportions. I don't see how Alain's serpentine tail could do that, and I don't see how we could rotate it fast enough in A:M to make it appear as a horrific blur. The Baum book cover has a simple propellar [which Disney retained] but it seems more suited to an outboard motor than a flying disaster machine.

Speaking of crows: does anyone remember the animated cartoon "We're Back!" where the Walter Cronkite character [Professor New Eyes] has an evil twin [Professor Screw Eyes] who is always attended by a phalanx of sinister crows? Now there was some crows! [I'll have to watch that again.]

Kelly,
Oh, OK. I'll trust you on the tail. From the pictures, your orc looked like its tail was a cross between a turkey and some kind of slinky made up of suction cups!
I was wondering if you could give it larger arrogant eyes, a slight arrogant-type of sneer (the orc seems arrogant in the script, or at least very self-assured) and mouth/beak that is a little more suited for lip sync? When I look at that beak, all I can imagine coming out of it is "CAW! CAW!" Just a suggestion. I trust you'll come up with a kick ass orc. All your designs are awesome. You obviously give a lot of thought to them.

Spin all that very quickly and you have a pretty good summation of how the tail works.

Arrogant? Let me see what I can do.

....and would you believe? They've not seen fit to release "We're Back" on DVD! I'll have to blow the cobwebs out of the VCR and see it again.

Another consideration for the Orc. It has to be able to ride on Capt'n Bills shoulders without looking too terribly unnatural.

Here's [I hope] a more disdainful, supercilious Ork...pontificating of the natural superiority of Orks...which, I guess, they do a lot.

I'll do a rough of Bill packing an Ork on his shoulders for tomorrow.

Here's a pencil rough [plus some Photoshop coloring] of Bill with an Ork on his shoulders. If Bill can carry an Ork, but the Ork's tail can whip up a typhoon [or a typhoon wanna-be] you can see how the notion of the ever-expanding tail came about, and my initial characterization: that an Ork in flight looks like a 55 gal. drum with a canary at the front.

Fine work but I wonder...

The current design seems to be more bird than Ork*. (*This from comparison to the classic view)
I know you are experimenting but I think we've lost something important here.

Alain's design:

Early illustration from Baum's work (classic):

Current look:


While this last one would be a lot easier to rig and animate it seems to have lost the 'fantastic' element that the classic had.

Note also that Alian's design immediately suggests a personality. I think this is a pretty nice improvement over the classic design. For a character with dialogue this could be important. It definitely makes the character more endearing while the latest seem to keep us more detached.

I agree. Honestly, the tail isn't that big a deal. It doesn't have to whip up a storm or even be a propeller. As long as it flys.

Yeah, I keep getting the feeling that a simple long tail that raises over the orc's head, while the last 2/3 of the tail whips around in a circle like a helicopter may be the most effective (and easiest as well!). But I do realize that my idea for the orc's tail is cliche, so I'm trying to stay neutral and open minded.

OK. New Ork sketches coming.

New Ork. I did it with the droopy, goofy-eye that Alain designed, and a second, that hopefully, can get uppity and arrogant.

I can relate more to that one. But the tail is going to have to be a lot longer if he is going to use it like a big helicopter blade.

I'll let the modeler work that out! As long as we have a good, general sense of where we're headed with a design.

Any word on which one we're doing here? I think I like Alains best.

I'd say Alain's got the nod on this one.

OK. Since Witchy isn't decided yet, I'll work on the ork after I'm done with the guards.

I had a bit of a eureka moment.....instead of a plane propellor for a tail (as it is in the books), why not make his tail like a hens tail.....a fan shape. See the image for a crappy mock up. The tail could flap up and down to propel the ork forward....creating a huge wind as it does so. His wings can be used for navigation or to take off vertically.

Right on! Much better than trying to design a spinning propellar tail.

I still like using a long tail as a helicopter blade spinning over his head (not like an airplane propeller).
But I'll go along with what everyone else wants.

The tail acting like a helicopter blade would be very difficult make it look convincing. In flight, his butt would be higher in the air (to make it look right) compated to his head. Not very elegant. Then Bill and Trot have to sit on his back too.
As I say, I think a flapping tail seems more elegant....no fuss....just flap really fast and you're off. Plus it has the added bonus of being closer to the original design and being easy to rig and animate.

Give it a go then, and we'll see how it works. It might work great. If it doesn't we can always modify it.

Ken - I like your idea - but a variation might be that to fly: the tail elongates, the feather/blades spread apart and then rotate?

I was just modeling something similar to the first one.......it's sort of a concertina tail that can fold when landed.

If the tail "feathers" flare out to make an actual propellar, and if you nest several together so as to raise up a huge storm, then we've nearly come full circle from where I started. Needless to say, I heartily endorse this direction.

No....no plane propellor. It's too un-natural looking.

OK. That's cool. But whatever happens, it has to move fast, and blurry. Acording to the text, Orks can stir up a tornado on land and genrerate whirlpools at sea.

Yes....fast will be in there. Imagine a slave in front of the Pharaoh on a really hot day. He's got a big fan in his hands and is frantically fanning his master to keep him cool. But it'll be faster....just a blur. And the fan can be folded up like a one of those Spanish fans. Like this:

Sounds good!

Here's the progress so far. I intend to cover him in fur too. Any observations/comments welcome.

Beautiful. How about longer, finger-like toes, for gripping?

I don't know....I kind of like the dinosauresque look to the feet. If he needs to grip, maybe he could do it with his mouth? Any other opinions on it?

He's very cute and friendly looking. Me guste mucho.

Are you going to be adding more tail "fan" thingies?

I was thinking about he would convincingly grip Trot or Bill when lifting them into the air.

In the original, they ride on Orks back. Not sure about the new script yet though. He's got all the joints to grip already but he's just walking on his tippytoes.



For a propeller? It doesn't work like a prop....but fans up and down really fast. I know it doesn't look very fancy now....I was hoping hair would do that. There'll be plumes at the top like a peacock.

I was thinking more like the expanding fan action (like the image you posted). Hair peacock plumes at the top sounds great (pssst....I know where you can get some peacock feather plume image emitters real cheap.)

Oh right. There's no room to join on another section to his butt. However, the last image is the tail fully expanded......in a pose, I'll fold it up into three sections/bones with skin between them. Though I'm sure I could make it abit bigger (closer to 180 degree coverage when open) and make it about five sections. So, it won't fold exactly like a fan (under each other).....more like an accordian (beside each other).

I'll gladly get those images off you when we/you get round to doing that. I'm sure there's a bounty of them on your hard drive.

If the Orc has to pick up something, it would seem more practical for him to pick it up with his feet/claws. The shape of the beak would make it challenging to pick up and hold something just with the beak. The Orc would have to tilt its head back at an unnatural angle to grip an object with the lower beak without having the upper beak pass through whatever geometry is in the way.

I'd need a drawing as I don't know how it would look/work. It's either a dinosaur type foot (as in the sketch) or a stork type......ie just straight down legs with finger like toes.

The operative word is If he has to pick something up. If he does then it might be worth changing his leg structure.....if his mouth couldn't be made do it.

Good point (*IF* it has to pick up something). I guess I'll have to go back through the latest version of the script.

Hi,

I really like the Ork, but, isn't there suppose to be four wings? to quote the book...

""Well, they are not very big," admitted the Ork, waving the four hollow skins gently to and fro,"

There is also mention of four feet...

""Your foot!" cried the Ork. "why, you've only one to hurt you, while I have four. So I suffer four times as much as you possibly can."

However a two winged and two legged creature seems more familiar or something less avant-garde. Which for a main character is better, perhaps.

Yours

Steve

As with TWO, we're not bound to the original. Lots of the other characters aren't the same either eg Captain Bill wears a captains suit rather than a raincoat/mac.

Daniel, here's the model.

I think the Ork needs a propellor for its tail. (I just got though getting 2_01 ready for Keyframing, and the discussion of Ork's tail is important.)

The Ork is in the process of being rig now. I got the rig installed and there were some problems. David has been helping me get things straighten out. So any modeling change at this point, should not be done til the rigging is done, or not at all. I am not going to rerig this model if major changes are made, it's been a nightmare.