Character from my short film

[M4Dn355]

Hey thats pretty cool :) He almost looks like those guys off the movie "Whem mars attacks"

[KeithM]

Thanx! I'm pretty happy with him.

Several of my friends have made the same comment. Actually, when I was designing him I was just trying to make the most stereotypical '60's Alien' I could. There are some similarities, though!

My main concern was to get a kind of Chuck Jones feeling for him. He's pretty much a character in the style of Wyle E. Coyote or 'The Brain' from Pinky and the Brain.

Keith

[[msf]]

invader zim eat your heart out.

I really like the character although he does hit the mars attack image quite a bit. But of course they were going for the same look at you. Cant wait to see the short.

[violenza]

Great model! Lots of personality and, above all, he has a cranium encased in glass!!! :)

I hear all the great thinkers had a glass dome......

[Gilgamesh]

I love the teeth

[Pentagramma]

Cool!!!

The transparent skull is a great idea!:)

[KeithM]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the glass brain-case. I think everyone will have them in the future!
It caused me some problems, though - it meant that, in order to get the look I wanted, I couldn't use shadow maps - everything had to be ray-traced, which made a fairly simple scene MUCH slower to render than it seemed like it should take.
oh, well.

here's a still from the actual short:
http://www.keithmatz.com/Blurgg/Blurgg_Still.jpg

One of my friends referred to the look as 'photo-unreal', which I really like!

Keith

[Potts]

Excellent work -

I like that you have made a character that is great to animate - massive eyes and eyebrows. Looks like a fun character to use.

Potts

[KeithM]

Thanks, Potts

Yeah, like I said, my original goal was to have a character ACT, so I really wanted to play up the aspects that sold emotion and expression.

I used to be a character designer in tv animation, and I always had this theory that most of a character's 'character' was in the eyes and face, followed by the hands, and then the body and body language. It probably doesn't hold true in real life, but with anything stylized, I think its pretty true.

Of course, the other great thing about animating a character who looks like this is that he supports an amazing range of exaggerated expressions!

Keith

[Adam]

Great character and very clean render

It looks flawless.
He would make a great mascot

:bounce: :bounce: :wavey: :bounce: :bounce:

[Mc3d]

Is that... Why yes it is. Thats the guy from Men In Black. The little Alien that is inside head of the dead body, when Smith figures out what Orions belt means.

[KeithM]

Well, I started a new thread for this already, but just in case anyone is following this, the short is live at ifilm.com.

Click here to see Emperor Blurgg! (http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,2429060,00.html)

Let me know what you think!

Keith

[lossy]

Nice film! I know what you mean about the character being in the eyes.

Coincidentally, I'm in the process of starting the eyes for a character I'm working on (possibly for my reel). Do you have any tips or know of any good resourses for the all important windows to the soul?

[Bster]

Wow. Im amazed. What program did u use? Im just started to learn this stuff and im using 3ds MAX. That looks great, better than the lots of stuff ive seen before. Good job! BTW how long did it take you to get that good?

[goosh]

Nice character design..

Now, be carefull when you animate him. Don't forget that a big head like that would be pretty heavy, plus big feet and short legs are always a pain to deal with but not imposible to animate.

I can't wait to see him in action.. looks really cool

Goosh

[Facial Deluxe]

Waaaaaaaaa, I love the second pic !

[KeithM]

Thanks for all your input.

Blurgg was done completely in Lightwave 7.0, textures painted in Photoshop, and composited in After Effects.

As far as eyes go, there was a great tutorial for creating eyes (it might have been a Bill Fleming thing, I don't remember), that I can't seem to find now. Basically, what I've always done is to make an eyball and iris, then a slightly larger ball surrounding it, with a bulge for the cornea. The larger ball is almost completely transparent, pretty reflective, and refractive.

The real secret, in my mind, is to get a good highlight on the eye. If you look at feature films, there is almost always a hotspot on the pupil and iris. I'm still experimenting to find what I like best, but I've used both spotlights, and bright objects that are invisible to camera to get this effect, and I think it adds a lot of life to a character.

Keith

[MaskTX]

I like his eyes and brain!

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