Getting the Ingredients
Miranda's Dream
The Art of Michelle Tolo
torsdag 11. september 2014
Exam Project, 2014
I finally got around to upload more work on this blog now.
This was my exam project at the end of my 2nd year at the Animation Workshop. Out of 4 different assignments to choose between, I chose the concept art assignment. The task was to write a story, design 2 characters for it, make a final illustration containing both characters, and then make the illustration into a 2,5d animation with moving layers.
Story:
The story is about an isolated town that is being haunted by the ghost of a legendary hunter who died 200 years earlier. He hunts down the other hunters from the town in the surrounding woods, in an attempt to punish the people who wrongly accused his loved one for being a witch 200 years earlier, and killed her. Her soul was trapped, and he will not rest in peace as long as she can’t go with him.
An ambitious girl, Amy, sets out to hunt down the ghost herself, after he killed her father. In her attempt, she struggles to remain the hunter rather than the prey, and this illustration shows a moment from the hunt between the two characters.
Character design:
Exam project: The Restless Hunt from Michelle Tolo on Vimeo.
This was my exam project at the end of my 2nd year at the Animation Workshop. Out of 4 different assignments to choose between, I chose the concept art assignment. The task was to write a story, design 2 characters for it, make a final illustration containing both characters, and then make the illustration into a 2,5d animation with moving layers.
Story:
The story is about an isolated town that is being haunted by the ghost of a legendary hunter who died 200 years earlier. He hunts down the other hunters from the town in the surrounding woods, in an attempt to punish the people who wrongly accused his loved one for being a witch 200 years earlier, and killed her. Her soul was trapped, and he will not rest in peace as long as she can’t go with him.
An ambitious girl, Amy, sets out to hunt down the ghost herself, after he killed her father. In her attempt, she struggles to remain the hunter rather than the prey, and this illustration shows a moment from the hunt between the two characters.
Character design:
Final illustration with thumbnails/colour thumbnails:
Exam project: The Restless Hunt from Michelle Tolo on Vimeo.
fredag 4. april 2014
Project Quadruped
For the past 10 weeks, we have been working on what is called Project Quadruped. The goal was to design a four-legged creature, recreate it in 3D, and then have it animated and integrated into a live action background. We teamed up in teams of 1 CG artist and 1-2 animators. I had 2 animators on my team, Agnete Winther and Ekaterina Gusarova.
Together, we created The Greater Magnificent Armor Beast. I had a ton of fun designing and modeling it, and I think my animators did a great job on the animations they did.
Design, made in cooperation with my animators:
Zbrush sculpture:
Retopologized and rigged Maya model:
Shading & lighting WIP:
Lighting with geocashed animation by Ekaterina Gusarova:
Final composited clip. Animation by Agnete Winther:
Together, we created The Greater Magnificent Armor Beast. I had a ton of fun designing and modeling it, and I think my animators did a great job on the animations they did.
Design, made in cooperation with my animators:
Zbrush sculpture:
Retopologized and rigged Maya model:
Shading & lighting WIP:
Final composited clip. Animation by Agnete Winther:
onsdag 18. desember 2013
The Trailer Project
Introduction:
This semester has been spent working on one big project called the Trailer Project. We were divided into groups of 4 CG artists and 4 animators, and each group got a classic movie that they were going to remake a trailer for in 3D. A lot of creative freedom was given, something we appreciated a lot.
Pre-production:
My group got the Italian film "The Bicycle Thieves" (1948). The whole group worked together over the first 2 weeks, working on story and concept designs. I spent a lot of time working on environments, as well as testing out some mood paintings. In the end, we settled on having an environment with a big, tower-like city, where the richest people lived on top, and then have it surrounded by slums and poor villages on the ground. We wanted to have a flying bicycle that the main characters could fly around with, high up in the city, where they put up posters for a living.
Production:
Once pre-production was done, the animators left the project for quite some time before it was time for them to animate the different shots. In the CG class, we created the DLO, or 3D storyboard, before we started modeling the characters and sets.
We had 4 characters in our project, one for each CG artist. I was in charge of the lille kid called Bruno. I started by sculpting him in Zbrush, following the design one of the animators in my group had made.
After the Zbrush sculpt was done, I retopologized the character in Maya. Then I rigged it, and passed it on to the animators so that they could animate the shots while me and the rest of the CG's were working on textures and shading.
Once the animation was done, we put it onto our sets, and did the final lighting and shading. I was mainly working on the shots that took place inside the city. Here are a couple of images showing what it ended up looking like, or at least very close to final:
And here's the final result, after spending 4 long months working on the project:
This semester has been spent working on one big project called the Trailer Project. We were divided into groups of 4 CG artists and 4 animators, and each group got a classic movie that they were going to remake a trailer for in 3D. A lot of creative freedom was given, something we appreciated a lot.
Pre-production:
My group got the Italian film "The Bicycle Thieves" (1948). The whole group worked together over the first 2 weeks, working on story and concept designs. I spent a lot of time working on environments, as well as testing out some mood paintings. In the end, we settled on having an environment with a big, tower-like city, where the richest people lived on top, and then have it surrounded by slums and poor villages on the ground. We wanted to have a flying bicycle that the main characters could fly around with, high up in the city, where they put up posters for a living.
Production:
Once pre-production was done, the animators left the project for quite some time before it was time for them to animate the different shots. In the CG class, we created the DLO, or 3D storyboard, before we started modeling the characters and sets.
We had 4 characters in our project, one for each CG artist. I was in charge of the lille kid called Bruno. I started by sculpting him in Zbrush, following the design one of the animators in my group had made.
After the Zbrush sculpt was done, I retopologized the character in Maya. Then I rigged it, and passed it on to the animators so that they could animate the shots while me and the rest of the CG's were working on textures and shading.
søndag 25. august 2013
Personal 3D work
Over the summer holiday, I started to play a bit around with 3D sculpting. I still find it a bit tricky to use the tools and get what I want, but it's getting better with each sculpt I make. I mostly worked in Sculptris, and then I've started to learn Zbrush as well.
Human bust:
All made in Sculptris. This is the second sculpt I tried making, and I spent a whole afternoon/evening trying to get the hang of it. In the end I got something that started to look alright.
Undead horse:
All made in Sculptris. I wanted to challenge myself and make a whole creature, and seeing as I'm quite fond of horses, it ended up being an undead horse. It was really fun to make this.
Dragon:
Mostly made in Sculptris, then details and some refining were added in Zbrush.
Human bust:
All made in Sculptris. This is the second sculpt I tried making, and I spent a whole afternoon/evening trying to get the hang of it. In the end I got something that started to look alright.
Undead horse:
All made in Sculptris. I wanted to challenge myself and make a whole creature, and seeing as I'm quite fond of horses, it ended up being an undead horse. It was really fun to make this.
Dragon:
Mostly made in Sculptris, then details and some refining were added in Zbrush.
Personal work: Paintings
Here are some personal pieces that I've made over the summer, both complete paintings and sketches. All are painted in Photoshop.
Centaur Hunter:
An experiment with centaur anatomy.
Blood Allergy:
"Herbert was thrilled to finally get to visit his girlfriend's parents,
who were both well known as some of the strongest and oldest vampires in
Europe. Unfortunately for him, he got to experience the full extent of
his blood allergy, when the one, rare kind he was allergic to, happened
to be served that very night. Oh, the shame..."
Dragon Portrait:
Around 50 minutes in Photoshop CS6.
Speedpaintings_01:
Around 1-1,5 hours on each sketch, Photoshop CS5.
Speedpainting_02:
Around 2 hours in Photoshop CS5. Inspired by Pacific Rim.
Speedpaintings_03:
Around 1,5-2 hours on each sketch, Photoshop CS5. Focus on storytelling, composition and colours.
onsdag 3. juli 2013
Biped Project
During the course of 4 weeks (February 25 - March 22, 2013), we were to design a character, create a traditional clay maquette of it, and then model it in 3D. I created a vampire character by the name Maurice Château, and I had a great amount of fun throughout the whole process of creating him.
Concept sketch (Photoshop CS6):
Teacher: Gábor Steisinger
Traditional maquette (Chavant clay):
Teacher: Lasse Smith
Concept sketch (Photoshop CS6):
Teacher: Gábor Steisinger
Traditional maquette (Chavant clay):
Teacher: Lasse Smith
3D model (Maya, Mudbox):
Teacher: Daniel Burwen
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