DavePreciado.com
Feb 10
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, cg, character, dog, maya, mudbox, sculpt, turntable

Mugs model, UVsets, & sculpt

Once I had Mugs’ design finalized, he was ready to model in Maya.  Using image planes for my model reference, I was able to shape my character to look exactly like my design.  I started with a low poly version, and used this as my base for everything.  At this stage if was easiest to lay out the UV’s.    I’m not using ptex just yet as some applications I may be using are not ptex friendly.  I do love the idea of not having to fuss with UV’s but I’m a bit old school in that area at the moment.  I added a collar with a buckle, similar to the one my dog had.  After some tweaks and a smoothing pass, Mugs was ready to go into Mudbox for some sculpting.     In Mudbox, I tried my best to sculpt out muscle groups and shapes according to canine anatomy.  Since Mugs is heavily characterized, and I still want him to be cartoony, this was a delicate exercise.  At the end I felt I had accomplished a nice balance of believable muscles, but still feeling toon like.  I also painted some color as his base texture in Mudbox.    Exporting maps from […]
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Feb 09
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: anatomy, character, drawing, model, model sheet, poses, sketching, studies

Dog poses to model sheet

The next step was to do some quick pose studies on canine anatomy.  I started drawing the more recognizable and common movements dogs tend to make.  The classic stretching downward dog pose, the purest of all happiness leaping run, the “that hurts my feelings” look, and so on.  I was starting to have a better understanding of canine movement, although the shoulder area is one of the most complex of all joints I’ve studied.  I’ll worry about that later 😉 Looking forward, I wanted to test different mannerisms I may find Mugs in.  He’s very characterized so I anticipate hitting certain poses is going to be a challenge with the rig.  Once I felt I had a few I was happy with, I drew several sketches to develop Mugs’ model sheet, and this is the final: Maya time.
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Feb 09
by Dave in Uncategorized 0 comments tags: boy, cartoon, concept, dog, doodle, drawing, ideas, night, sketch

4am weirdness

It was 4 a.m. and I could hear rhythmically thumping 4/4 bass from the nightclub downstairs.  At the time, I lived right in the CBD (for you North Americans, that means City Business District) next to Cuba street, in the middle of everything.  Could it have been the club music keeping me up?  Perhaps.  It was more likely that coffee I had at 3:30 that afternoon that was just kicking in. I got up, grabbed my sketchbook, and put pencil on paper.  Just a middle of the night doodle. After a couple pages of grotesque nonsensical middle-of-the-night depictions, I wanted to push out more ideas for the dog character in my story.  I poorly attempted some perspective type industrial design drawings of a dog and failed.  It’s 5am and my hands are doing that caffeine trembling thing, whaddya want?  These certainly did help me zero in on some shapes for the canine, and I providentially developed an idea I fancied for the boy. Getting there   I wasn’t sure if this were the direction I wanted to go, but at the end of the day I wanted my character to look like my old dog Droopy (named after ).  He was a […]
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Feb 08
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: animation, film, James Cameron, production, screenplay, script, short film

The locked script

Getting to work on many large and small films, I have seen a variety of methods employed in story telling over the years.  The person whom I most identify with in his process is James Cameron.  I worked on Avatar for 2 1/2 years and witnessed how he developed a film from a script.  Out of the other big name directors whose films I’ve had the privilege to be a part of – Spielberg and Peter Jackson specifically – Jim made the most sense to me.  He told me once “make the films YOU want to see”, and that stuck ever since. My entire career has been helping other story tellers dreams come true, so I decided it is my turn.   From the time I was a kid visiting my dad on movie sets, to college, to my 1st job in “the industry” doing storyboards on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I have been grooming myself for this moment.  But what did I want to say?  What is the message of this first story of mine? I poured myself a modest glass of Glenfarclas 105 single malt whiskey, put on the Morhpine station on Pandora, sat on my couch and began to labor […]
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Feb 08
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: animation, cg, concept, ideas, short, sketch, thumb nail

Early thumbnails

When I initially started milling out ideas for my characters last year, I started with some thumbnails in my sketchbook.  Very loose, rough and ugly, but I began to find the shapes I wanted my characters to consist of.  I tried out different poses I thought I may find them in and mainly focused on silhouettes.  This was basically stream of consciousness sketching after those late nights working on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hobbit. I used a PITT artist pen from Faber-Castell.  These pens have a brush-like action to them, but are still felt tipped.  Really great for thumb nailing or outlining.
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Feb 07
by Dave in Uncategorized 0 comments tags: animation, art, blog, cg, cintiq, new zealand, photography, welcome, workspace, workstation

3 1/2 months

Last November I finished working on The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies for Weta Digital.  It was my 3rd film at Weta, the 1st two being The Hobbit:  Desolation of Smaug and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  I’ve lived in New Zealand for over a year and a half and am now making NZ my home. Since then I’ve most certainly been keeping busy.  In December I put together a 240 page photography book for my daughters Xmas gift.  It was a hard bound coffee table book that detailed our 6 week adventure in the Southern Hemisphere last summer.  It took 100+ hours to put it all together, but turned out light years better than what I expected.  If any of you want to make one yourself, I suggest using Adobe Lightroom 5.5’s “Book” feature.  Adobe has partnered up with   who I’ve found their books and paper to be the best quality and design.  And no, I’m not getting kickbacks from either of these companies, I just really like how easy and clean both applications are.  Really cool addition to Lightroom! When I returned from my Xmas holiday, I continued to work on my short and decided […]
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