Brian poses

Brian has been asked to represent a podcast called 'Chasing Brussels,' a blog about EU politics. I think Brian will fit right in! The brief was to make him look like he was chasing something (Brussels I imagine) and then being puffed out from all the chasing. Well he's tired out but very pleased to make his mascot debut!

(click to see big)

It's not all about Brian

I was walking home today and got a craving to draw a goblin. Maybe I'm missing Runescape... or maybe I'm inspired by the locals walking down City Road :)



















(click to make big)

Brian drive thru.

Here is Brian finally united with his car. The next step is to texture the car with a bit of rust and dirt. Meanwhile, I'm working on a lady librarian character for Brian to meet. The story of Brian is growing and I need to catch up with my storyboards!

(click to make big)

a few Brian faces.

Brian is starting to gain the ability to pull a few expressions. The recent development is the addition of brow and eyebrow controls.

The brow is controlled with a blend shape and the eyebrows are controlled with a joint system with stretchy IK spline (my favourite:)) I set up a driven key to allow the brow and eyebrow to move up and down together. The eyebrows can also be tweeked into any position as the driven key animation is applied further up the hierachy.

The next stage will be to add more preset brow and eyebrow poses like angry, sad etc. and then start work on the mouth shapes.


(click to see big)

Brian on the week end

Brian on a week day

Brian gains confidence

Here is a new walk cycle with Brian. It is actually a quick adaptation of the previous walk cycle (below).

I have rotated his hips, shoulders and head back to open up his pose. I have also pushed his feet wider apart and pointed his toes out.

All of these changes were made in the graph editor. I just grabbed the necessary curve and dragged the whole thing up or down to make the change. This preserved all the animation that I had completed previously but shifts it around to a different place... if that makes sense.

Oh yeah and I gave him a cheeky smile :)