The beginning of the Lascer.

These would be the concept sketches for the Lascer. The one that shows just the head is actually the very first drawing that Jason and I approved of. The very first attempt at this design ended up looking way too much like one of the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. I realized that I needed to keep the muzzle t-rex-like to retain the aggressive look I was going for. I eventually ended up with this head that I really liked. Jason took notice and added his suggestions and I eventually ended up with the rest of the drawings.

At this point I already knew exactly what the body was going to look like. I wanted a creature that walked on its knuckles so I started researching gorilla anatomy. I wanted the creature to have the ability to stand and push off with its hindquarters so I researched velociraptor and t-rex anatomy. It definitely had to have a tail and since this guy was going to need all the natural weapons he could get, I decided to add a spear-like bone protrusion to the end of the tail. The armor plates on the head and neck were improvisation. I always liked creatures that had aesthetically pleasing rhythm in their designs so the swept back armor plating helped achieve that feel. I think it was Jason that suggested that the eyes remain pupil-less. If anything, it gives the creature a creepy, but cool look and I can play with eyeshapes to express emotion.

I have a lot of his movements mapped out in my head and I've started thumbnailing some of them already. I'm currently working on the walk and run cycles so I'll post those once I have them refined. I even have a cool idea involving the lascer taking a few steps and diving from a standing position onto his forearms and taking off into a run.

It all started with guy with a gun.

So this is basically where it all started. One of Chuck's (our 3D and final film teacher) first assignments was having us come up with five different core concepts and rendering them out as illustrations. My concepts ranged from two envy driven pirate parrots to a T-Rex coming out of a cardboard time machine. Jason had his main focus on a cool little story involving a small Easter Island inspired tiki character. He has actually done a short animation on this concept for our 2D animation class.

I seemed to get a lot of feedback on the T-Rex/time travel story and the soldier drawing. I inevitably went with the soldier idea and started developing it before Jason and I paired up. This is the very first drawing of Jake and my very first stab at digital painting. I had no idea what the lascer looked like and I'm pretty sure that I didn't know I was going to call it a "lascer" at this point either. The one thing about the creature I was sure about was it was going to have irked Jake in some way and that it was going to be big. I think it's safe to say that at this point I was fiddling around with the idea of revenge as the core drive to the story. Revenge makes for angry fighting which makes room for mistakes on both sides. This in turn makes for an interesting and emotionally driven confrontation...

...just kidding, I had no idea what was gonna drive the story at this point. I just knew I wanted the opportunity to build and animate a cool creature and a soldier.

Entry Numero Uno

Welcome all. From now until we yell "FINAL!" this shall be our production blog for the short film Jason Downing and I, Lawrence Grijalva, are doing for school. We were originally going to do our own thing, but our teacher allowed us the luxury of working together. Jason loves modeling and makes it look easy. He has really taken off with ZBrush and has done some extraordinary work so far. I love animation so we saw the benefits of working together. We're like a two man VFX army! We get to concentrate on the one, or more, aspects of 3D animation that interest us the most.

So out of the ideas we had started working on we chose to go with my concept. The sole reason behind this is that both Jason and I are creature junkies. We both love the same movie creature moments and can easily list off ILM's best creature work. In a quick attempt at summation, my concept is basically a rite of passage story. It takes place on a different world where the native race is under siege by a hostile alien race. The native race is comprised of soldiers who train their whole lives in combating the alien race, also known as the Lascers. Our short film focuses on one young soldier, Jake Archer, who is searching for a friend. What he finds instead drives him to hunt a rogue lascer. An act that is considered a rite of passage for an experienced and prepared soldier.

More of the story will be revealed later as we develop the storyboards. We have a good idea of what we need in terms of 3D assets as well as the inevitable fight between the two. Jason has already sculpted a concept maquette in ZBrush and is well into modeling the creature in Maya. Once he finishes the primary form he'll take the model into ZBrush and begin sculpting in the details. In the meantime I'm brushing up on my rigging skills as well as researching how I want the lascer to move. I've got a good idea of how the walk cycle is going to look as well as a few key hero movements that are going to eventually come into play. Once we finish the lascer, we'll begin work on Jake. A stylized human character is a tad difficult to do, but shouldn't be much of a problem to pull off. The key is to keep him as stylized as possible so that his movements and look are more acceptable. The basis for why The Incredibles worked as well as it did.

We both hope to use the blog as a means of documenting the production of the film. We'll be posting concept art, 3D models, and eventually animatics and rough animation. There may even be footage of us making complete fools of ourselves in out attempt to rough out the choreography of the main fight. All this and more to come.

Stay tuned...