For my second portfolio project, I chose to work on part of my team’s final animation. Gunter, the crocodile, is playing with the ball he stole from Pugsley. I chose to apply anticipation, follow-through and overlapping action, arcs, secondary action and timing for my principles of animation.

Anticipation can be seen several times, usually right before Gunter throws the ball into the air. I made him pull back just slightly before throwing, creating a feeling of anticipation as the viewer waits for him to complete his throw. This is especially visible at 0:10.

For follow-through and overlapping action, I tried to make sure that after every action Gunter took, there was a reaction to it. At 0:13, you can see him slowly pulling back after he catches the ball, following through on that action rather than just stopping. I tried to make sure he was somewhat in motion at all times.

Gunter’s movements, especially his head and tail movements, follow arcs to create a feeling of smooth motion. This can be seen clearly as he moves his head from side to side at 0:09.

I tried to use secondary action to bring Gunter’s character to life. Most of his main actions are in his mouth and the movement of his head; I used small hand movements and flicks of his tail to try and create a more full, realistic feeling of motion and life.

Through timing, I tried to express Gunter’s character. The lazy way in which Gunter throws and catches the ball shows his confident nature, while also giving the sense that he is having fun showing off.

Environment was created by my teammate Joyce for our final project

Source Files

For this project, I decided to model an office inspired by the town hall in Animal Crossing New Leaf.

Almost all of my modeling was done by manipulating polygons. I used Boolean operations – Union, Difference and Intersection – to create most of my objects. The desks and drawers were done by extracting, extruding and recombining surfaces. The chair seats and backs were NURBS circles that were then deformed, turned into polygon surfaces, then extruded.

This tutorial inspired my wood materials, and this one helped with the material for the chairs. All other materials were created by hand, and the materials made following the tutorials were modified and customized.

My primary references were these two images of the town hall:

The Source File contains all my Maya files and a folder of previous, unfinished renders to show progress.