Bugbots were invented by Skarab's grandfather, Grandaddy Longlegs. Skarab was just a grub of five or six when he witnessed a test of the very first Bugbot prototype in his Grandaddy's lab. When he was grown, he became Chief Bugbot Inspector for the entire planet, a position of great responsibility and status.

When the Bugbots were struck with a mysterious computer virus called Beetlemania, it was his responsibility to track it down. But when his old college best frenemy, Biff, now a captain of industry, started confiscating infected Bugbots "for the good of all Weevils", it destabilized Weevil society, bringing it to the brink of war.

Skarab is tough, good-hearted and honest, but can be a little excitable, and sometimes is not as tough as he looks.

As I noted in the Rigging forum, I'm building a face rig from scratch for Skarab because his face is totally non-standard so I didn't think any existing face rigs would work. I guess I could have adapted an existing rig but I was unsure about whether I would break something in tinkering with it.

The problem areas are:
Eyes: complete spheres external to his head. Eye lids are hemispheres that open and close "as expected" given their design. But standard eyelid mechanics wouldn't do. In addition, the eye geometry is not connected and doesn't even overlap the head geometry, a design quirk that is mainly a holdover from the 2D art.

Eyebrows: the eyebrows are connected by stalks above the eyes, but are otherwise independent geometry. In anger, the inner ends not only move down over the eyes but also swell up somewhat.

Antennae: the four spikes on top of his head move around somewhat to emphasize his mood. If you've ever read Asterix comics you are probably familiar with the way the wings on his little helmet shift and change, and point up or down, depending on his mood. I've always liked this little touch. Skarab's spikes behave a little like that.

Cheeks/mouth: The mouth moves in a very standard way, but the cheeks don't swell out much, so cheek controls aren't as crucial.

Here's a test of the face rigging thus far. Still some rough spots but they don't show here. I need to figure out at least how to rig a smile, don't know if I'm going to go for a full set of phonemes though. BTW there's no sound on this. i know it looks like there should be.

looks great! He gives off an "I'm the boss" aire.

You could make a pose for each mouth corner that raises/lowers it for smile and frowns. This will work if his mouth doesn't do much horizontally.

I need to reconsider how I've rigged his mouth to do that. I was just guessing as I went and right now if I raise his mouth corners the entire lips raise with them. Also, the MultiD relationship I set up affects everything but the middle spline...well, long story short, it works okay if he doesn't smile or purse his lips. Fortunately, for the trailer I'm planning, he does neither.

Skarab lives!

We've been waiting for this day Gerry.

Congratulations!

Thanks Rodney!

Just playing around, got Skarab atop his Jetwasp doing a quick flyby.

Coolness, Gerry! I'm sure you've been looking forward to doing this. I know with the Wannabe Pirates, it gets to be fun to have all your toys to play with. :-)

Looks like this tough guy Skarab, has a big job, but with a tender side, nicely done Gerry

Thanks peeps! I got a walk cycle going, and I think I see some foot slippage in the animation but when I step through it frame by frame it's not as obvious. I guess that means I'm close! See what you think...

Skarab is coming along nicely, Gerry.
The slippage seems to be the result of having several frames where he doesn't change position much. When his legs are at full stretch they seem to hold for about 4 or 5 frames.

Thanks Paul, I need to look at that more closely. I may do another render where he's a little closer to the camera. Or even a render of a closeup on his feet would help.

EDIT: scratch that, but a full-figure render would allow me to look closer at his arms as well. I think there's a pop in the swing of his left arm, but a better render will help me see that.

What every kid needs... a Skarab Action Figure!

Forgive me Gerry...
Yesterday I got the sudden urge to texture and light something... anything.
I happened to see your model and started playing around with it.

Skarab is a very cool character.
But I have a sneaky feeling the toy makers may want to get rid of some of the pointy breakable appendages... I keep cutting my fingers on them.

Wow, very cool Rodney! Does that model have the face rig? I'd be interested to know how it performs for you. More tests!

BTW I'll worry about the toy makers later. I'm not designing for toys, I'm telling a story!

I was surprised to see a facial rig... but there it was. Perhaps it is an early version?
This was a version that didn't have any textures and (I thought) wasn't fully rigged yet.

My interest in this test was mostly to get familiar with the rig and to push the facial pose toward something I thought you might draw in your comic. The image here has had some pretty extensive post-processing (mostly background) and I had a nasty pass through of the lower lip and teeth that I had to fix before posting here. Chalk that up to not being familiar with the facial rig. As I find some time I'll try to experiment again.

I am a little concerned that the rig won't allow sufficient exaggeration but so far so good.

Please note: This is just messin'. I don't know what I'm doing here.

That's a fearsome pose, Rodney!

Thanks Robert.
I was going from memory but I distinctly recall Skarab as being a very dynamic personality. He practically jumps right of the page/screen at you. I think my pose here may be tame by comparison.

I plan to visit Gerry's site and try to replicate a few of his drawings.

If you haven't checked out Gerry's comic book artwork I recommend the visit to his site to soak up the drawing and narrative inspiration.

For those into comic book collecting that may follow particular artists, I find the superhero style Gerry uses to be a wonderful blend of Dave Cochrum's penciling (ref: X-MEN) and Bob Layton's (Ref: Ironman) for inking. Heck, I can even see some of Dave Cochrum in Gerry's modeling... which is a real treat. Rendering in Bob Layton's style... while not impossible... would be quite a trick.

Linkage: http://www.nightcallers.net/

Here is a more direct link to the online comics: http://www.mooneyart.com/bugbots/ishapa.html

How's this intro to Chapter 2 for IN-YOUR-FACE?

Also: Issue 4 is a good example of how internet comics can be interactive without being difficult or imposing difficult narrative manipulations on the reader: http://www.mooneyart.com/bugbots/ishdpa.html

Wow Rodney, thanks for the links and kudos!! I've never met Dave Cockrum but I go back with him to fandom days:we both created work for (I think!) the Yancy Street Gazette. They had two predominant fan artists, Dave (who signed his work DEC) and a guy named Alvin U. Grinage (who signed his work AUG) which made them look like names of months. I did some art and interviews for them among lots of other fanzines of that period.

Skarab's facial rig is something I designed myself after working with Holmes' LiteFace rig. Most of the Weevil characters have distinctly non-standard face-rigging needs. I never tested Skarab's face rig for the extreme expressions you're talking about, but you're right that he's very, em, expressive! pushing his expressions like that is very much needed and something I passed over. I was just thrilled to have a working rig.

I don't know but I'm assuming the one you've got is the one with the repaired arm bend that was posted back to me by Holmes I think? I posted it sans maps etc. just to get that arm fixed. Not sure if it has the smartskinning done but it appears to from your poses.

Ah the fanzine days. You'd think with the internet providing the distribution it does that fanzines like those of old would be all the rage. Perhaps the fanzines have just transformed into a new phase. I do miss those cheaply printed publications though.

I'm getting a little use to the facial rig now and with a little effort it can be made to fit a lot of needs.
There are a few things I keep looking for that I haven't seen; a controller to quickly move the head around (specifically forward) and a means to warp/bend the ends of Skarab's Eyebrow things. I can't help but think the mouth could use a few more controls and I didn't find a good way to adjust the pupils of the eyes to focus in/pinpoint on things. In the attached panel I moved the pupils in post. For still images that works fine but that could be troublesome for animation.

Of course all the controls I need are probably already there. I likely just didn't see them.

Here's a recreation of a panel with Skarab reacting in an understated way.
There is some subtlety in your pencil and ink work that I struggled with in the model but failed to get:

That is hilarious! Yeah, I didn't put in controls for shrinking the pupils, I might still do that. Can't you just rotate/translate the head bone to move the head around? I think that's what I've been using but there's no doubt a better way. Also the eyebrows aren't as animatable (yet!) as what I initially envisioned but they're functional enough for now. But your testing is really valuable and fun to boot!

Here's a test of Skarab leaping. Kinda quick and dirty. don't ask about the checkerboard, it's just what was in the chor!

Very nice Gerry. It would be nice to see 1/2 second more anticipation before he makes his final leap, and make the anticipation pose really strong. Get him down to a deep crouch, swing his arms back, bend his body forward and his head down. Give him a moving hold there for a half second. Then his shoulders go down right before his legs begin to uncoil, and his arms swing forward and up to transfer his momentum upward. (I think Richard Williams might suggest that you stretch his legs quite a bit before he actually leaves the ground.) In the next shot, where he is rising up past the camera, his arms should probably still be raised over his head, and his legs should be straight and toes pointed downward. If you extend the shot a couple seconds, as he begins to approach the apex of his jump, his arms might lower and his legs might begin to bend then as he becomes more concerned with maintaining his balance and pinpointing where his is going to land.

Holmes, that's an excellent analysis and hugely helpful. When I got home and played it for my wife I could see lots wrong with it that wasn't apparent when I was rushing to get it done before skinning out of the office. your comments pretty much nail all that. I'm going to get this a lot further along before I post it again.

Gerry,
If I may offer a suggestion it would be to press on... press on!
While the current animation will benefit from additional detailing I think the importance of the details will be more readily apparent within context of the accumulated story sequences. You may in fact find that little or no adjustments need to be made here.

In short, you can spend a whole lot of time on unnecessary detail at the expense of the greater storytelling.
Perhaps save such refinement for sequences with subtle camera moves, dialogue and slower pacing?

Holmes hits some great points of interest and you'll do well to keep them in mind as you progress.
The whole idea of Nightcallers seems optimized for exaggerated action, extreme posing and strong silhouettes every chance you get.
The idea of anticipation and strong pose in this particular jump is a great one but I'd be more interested in leading the audiences attention toward more important story elements. You can always tweak... tweak... tweak... and make it better.



Perhaps most importantly, in this sequence I distinctly 'heard' the pounding of Skarab's feet as they hit the ground prior to his take off. These are important story beats and the camera shake certainly aids in that effect. DOM! DOM! DOM! (Launch!)

Nice!

Added: The obvious weight demonstrated in Skarab shaking the ground indicates he'd have to have a considerable anticipation before his lift off in order to get that weight off the ground.

Rodney, that's all excellent advice and I really appreciate the time and thought you put into posting it.

I agree about moving on to telling the actual story. I'm also trying to get as fluent with my animation as possible on the way there, so all these tests and samples contribute to that. As I get closer and closer to animating the actual story, I also have to deal with several things that I rushed past, with the intention of "getting back to it later", like rigging Midge's face properly! With each character I rig I get more detail-oriented, with the result that when I go back to use a character I rigged just a couple months ago I see things that need tweaking and re-doing.

In any case I want to complete the character modeling and rigging before I start blocking the actual story scenes. I still need to do Centipete, Colfax and Biff, as well as a couple more Bugbots, so there's a long way to go before I can start animating the story.

As for

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Just playing around with Skarab and did this. It's *meant* to loop, don't know if it will keep its loop setting.
EDIT: Replaced with a version that loops three times.

That looks great Gerry!

Steve

Thanks Steve! I know some folks put QTs up here that loop. If you download it you can loop it I guess!

I switched the above QT with one that loops three times. The effect is a little better now.

Arghh! Skarab mad!

That looks good!

Thanks, Robert. Now I need to be able to shatter the floor or ground with each impact. Not sure if Newton physics has anything there or if I should hand-animate.

Rough render of scene 2, the Jetwasp chase through the Crustal Canyon as Skarab tries to shake the ten or so Enslaver Ants hot on his tail! Just trying out camera moves; there will be lots more texturing and lighting. And there WILL be crashes and explosions!

I posted this over on Facebook but I thought it would look good here too!

Looks great!