Character was inspired by a cat we met over thanksgiving. Poor domestic long hair kitty had been given a lion cut by his owner. Was pretty funny.

I also wanted a new character to build, learn from...was getting tired of stealing from others.

Have to finish rigging, weighting, texturing, yada yada. Not happy with my IK legs. Will be looking at 2008 rig legs and try to incorporate something similar. Not finished with face rig.

The mouth whiskers are giving me fits rigging wise. Can't quite figure out how to weight, bone so that when upper nozzle moves, the attached ends of the whiskers move appropriately. Have to add an easy to use tail rig.

Have been working in 16beta5 exclusively, and it is performing marvelously. I love FakeAO.

Impressive work Nancy!

Very cool! Love the look, and the simple splineage!

looks great! And could easily be made into a plush toy.

Very nice!

Great character, Nancy!

Spectacular, Nancy!

Superb character, Nancy!
Regarding the whiskers: You could break the chain of whisker bones so that there are just a couple of bones at the end which you can apply a dynamic constraint to. That way you keep control of most of the length of each whisker but allow the dynamics to look after the tips.

That's hysterical!

Those whiskers could be made of cloth if you want them to be dynamic but don't need to pose them.

Meee-Owwww! That is a fun character! I think you guys need to now do the Wizard of Oz in 3d ... You already have a start on the cowardly lion.

Nice, Nancy. (I always thought those "lion cuts" are ridiculous.)
This is a fun, very "you" sort of character.
Can't wait to see the animation =)

Another great one Nancy...definite has the NG touch

Thanks everyone - I very much appreciate your comments!

@Bruce McWedgeeMan: I can't believe me. I am amazed that I completely forgot about there being a lion in "Wizard of Oz"... How weird is that? And even weirder, I was thinking of maybe texturing a quilted raggy patch heart on his chest...It's now become very obvious to me that my brain cells have been Hypno-Ozzifried for all eternity. Maybe I'll give him a quilted raggy patched brain instead ?....ooops...uh...



Ah Yes. I was going to make each side have a dynamic constraint, along with a control bone (so that the group of 3 can also rotate from the base as a unit, independent of the face snozzle). But in my never-ending and never-clever pursuit of laziness and false economy of rigging-spline-time, I was thinking of only having 1 chain/side for the dynamic bones for the 3 whiskas. I will most likely have to add 3 chains per side.

YES, once again, days have been spent, trying to get out of adding extra bones that would have taken me 1/2 hour (if even that) to add.

Great Nancy can't wait for him to dance and say "king of the foreeeeeeeeesst"

I love him Nancy!

Steve

Thanks peeps!

Turns out I could use only 3 bones/side for dynamic constraints on the whiskas. My problem before was that I had weighted the roots of the whiskas 100% to the lip corner bone, instead of making it 80% weighted to the nostril bone, and 20% to the lip corner. That made the roots behave better.

After futzing with that, I went on to try out dynamic hair. For the hair, I tested both constraint type and spring type hair. I think the constraint type will win with some tweaking.

For those who were curious as to the difference between the types - the first example is Spring type, with 20% drag, gravity = OFF. 2nd example is Constraint type hair with 10% stiff, 1% drag, gravity = OFF.

In both examples, the whiskas also have dynamic constraint ON - but I think they look a little too stiff, so will probably tweak settings.

I am also noticing that FakeAO renders with QT files! yay! (I had thought it was only with png, tga, exr).

This is a "documenting my progress for me" post. Yay!

1) Changed his leg rig over to 2008 type (took me days to tear it apart - I'm slow). The body, arms, & hand rigs are from the LiteRig.
2) tweaked cp weighting, added dynamic constraint whiskas, dynamic constraint tail (to work with a bendy rig type tail)
3) added LiteRig face geom bones, but will be doing my own face controls. Still need to do phonemes, basic face poses

The clip is a further test of dynamic hair with collision detection, and dynamic constraints (whiskas, tail, with no collision detection).

Rendered with white AI=75%, 100% white (default size, etc) Klieg with zbuffer shadows (10%soft, 60% dark, 1024 res), FakeAO (haven't installed new version yet).

7 secs/frame 3 pass, 16beta5/32 PC.

This has been a good exercise in learning about modeling generically, and learning the rigs floating around.

Thanks Malo! Thanks Mark, Thanks Holmes! Thanks Gary Martin (bendy Rig). Thanks Jenpy! Thanks Steffen! Thanks Hash!

Wonderful design!

He looks fabulous!

Great job Nancy!

Steve

Great looking character. When you get done with him, you are going to have your own NancyRig!

Definitely a Nancy creature !!

Oh yes...I have also been playing with SSS. Tricky business.

If you've ever wondered what a cartoon lion looks like nekkid, wonder no more.

Thanks all.

EDIT: used SSS RGB = 40,20,15 at 100% density. 3 pass, approx 36 secs/pass

Terrific character, Nancy.

Totally Awesome Nancy

Thats a great charector Nancy ,the way the fur and tail move is very nice ,brilliant as allways

Joke: You took something beautiful and made it dirty!

Serious: I'm loving watching what you are coming up with! Both skill and creativity!

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imike24 Not cool to hack in on this topic or any other, Dude!

The 2011 Mascot contest is over, so just for completeness, here is/was my entry (with different background): Meet Mary Agnes and the Hickenloopers.

I intend to start an exercise for myself, to develop stronger, better "golden" poses, more interesting facial expressions (using Lothario), and maybe do a short vignette or 2 or more of acting moments. It might develop into a story I have in mind, influenced by a recent trip to Amargosa Opera House (in Death Valley) but we shall see how enthused, or distracted I become.

Hi Nancy
Those are great characters, I also liked the animation you did a few posts back of the Lion.
Great work!

Nancy,

You rule supremely as the master of stylistic hair.
If you ever make an extensive tutorial on the subject I'll buy it.

In looking at your image I tried to look at the hair from the perspective of someone that didn't know anything about the CG process. From that view I couldn't figure it out and just stared... and stared... and stared. Thankfully, I do know where I could start.

We are so lucky to have this stylistic capability available to us for our projects.

Me Too!
I especially dig the hair on the rodent wit the symbols.

Those are great looking characters, Nancy.

My "crit" would be that crash cymbals don't have a lip on the edge like a pot lid does. Or maybe those really are pot lids.

Thats beutifull ,well posed and put together.The cymbals look like theye are saucepan lids to me ,a nice touch

I would buy it as well! I love the look of everything!

Thanks all.

@Robert - Yes, they are supposed to be pot lids, not cymbals. Might have been more obvious if I had made them silver/aluminum looking, but I went with gold, cause I felt it better for color balance. Beat up garbage can lids might have also been more obvious, interesting.

@Holmes - That "rodent thing" started off being a hedgehog, but then I just morphed it into a ..um.."rodent thing" because I couldn't find the right caricaturization for it.

I was wanting an image suggesting cacophony ie, kids marching around, banging stuff together. My thoughts:

1) I'm not sure if I like it better with the blue background, or the white or an all black background.
2) I'm not satisfied that the flowers/roses sucessfully suggest motion, either from being thrown at them from an imagined adoring audience, or being stirred up from bouncing on the tambourine. Roses in flight probably should have had some motion trails. Just as the poses, hair on critters probably should have been more dynamic, depicting mid-stomp.
3) Face expression could have been more dynamic on the lion.
4) I wasn't happy with Rabbit's skin, as it supposed to look like a shiny satin material, so it probably could use some stitch type seams. I would want it to look more like a stuffed satin.

I will probably simplify Lothario's body/face material for animating, as the weave might be too distracting for communicating face expressions.

Stylized hair "toot"? ...uh...I seriously don't have a formal/prescribed method. I just play with all sorts of unexpected combos, ad nauseum. Maybe I'll start with specific character(s), already done and show what was done to achieve the look, & then how to change the look, as well as how I probably started the exploration. Maybe I'll take "rodent thing" and turn him into an even stranger rodent thing...Yeah, that sounds evil enough...

Thanks Dwayne, Steve, Shelton Steve, Rodney, Robcat, Holmes for your comments!

Just playing...

Great as usual Nancy

Looks great Nancy.

Very cool, Nancy!

Bee-yooo-tee-full, Nancy! It looks like a painting!

That is one of my favorite shots you have posted. Love the composition!

Steve

You are such an arteeste!

<----- Jealous! Really, really, nice images!

that's lovely!

Is there a hole in the top of that egg?

Very nice image. I like the models and the lighting.
Posing is good too, not static at all.

Michel

Thanks people, much appreciated!



Yes, there is. I grabbed an old model without thinking & stuck it in there. I also noticed the hole on top after posting. I decided my cover story would be that the egg was just starting to crack.

Thanks, Michel

render time = 38 secs for 5 pass, 800 x 800

1 direct overhead 100% white klieg, z buffered shadows (60% dark),

Ambiance Intensity =100%, color = white (may be too blown out for hightlights)

FakeAO: Sample level = 3, samples = 12, distance = 25, distribute = 1, camera focal length = 250