When the project began, we were taught the basics of Maya and what tools you need to use for certain tasks.
Each week a tutorial was put up for us to follow and we had to try and complete it over a certain amount of time. Then we'd go through it step by step if you got it wrong or couldn't figure out certain part.
A lot of the objects that were created from simple primitives and extruding them to create the general shape you need then you scale it down to then add on to the other primitives
Once you got the hang of the basics it made easy to create simple objects.
The first step to getting to this animation is to draw (it can been drawn digitally as well) a character from scratch, then scan the image and import it to Maya. The best primitive to start off with is a box then you extrude to make it longer, scale it down to keep it to the original shape.
I chose to use boxes for the feet as there were problems using spheres for the feet, the box primitives were easier.
The face was designed using a box, then extruded and shaped by changing the edges, vertices and faces.
The second character I was working was a phoenix character it was easier create. I only needed to use two or three primitives.
The second body of the phoenix was a much better attempt at creating a bird shape, as the one below was the worst. As I got more confident using the software i began to see a vast improvement in my models.
This the dragons body before i added the head I used Mudbox to create the spines on the body I was originally going to use this but it would have taken too long to render.
Below is the original model with the rigged skeleton and it has complete body movement and it is ready to be animated.
This is my third attempt at a phoenix style model as you can see it has improved a lot. This time I only used two primitives.
Below is my best attempt so far at this character design It's still not as good as I wanted it but I'm proud with how far I got with this model.
I was practicing on rigging the model with it's skeletal structure but I had a little trouble with binding it.
I also experimented with particles effects like fire, smoke and water particles but I still need to practice it. Overall I am very pleased with what I have achieved.
