In Spring of 2022 I was accepted into the Women in Animation’s Mentorship Circle Program. The circle I joined was called Surviving and Thriving in Animation Circle. We actually had a variety of different disciplines represented in the circle with most of the artists being story, visual, and concept designers. Most the time was spent creating the story and storyboard by the artist. However once the visuals were done I got personally got to work on creating the environment it would have been animated in if there was time. I did eventually receive a model for the main character and that was my main priority
For this rig, I gave her all of the basics I would give any biped rig. IK and FK arms and legs. However since we were intending on using her as an acting character I worked hard on her facial features, making sure all points of the face were set up so she could puff out her cheeks, lift different portions of her eyebrows, make different mouth shapes and smile, scrunch up her nose. Her braid also includes a ribbon set up, and the bang in the front has fk controls so that it make fall into her face somewhat as well.
I spent a lot of time with her weight painting, as I wanted everything to bed without any mesh breaking through each other. During the paint weighting process I tend to key characters into several poses that are reminiscent of stretching exercises.
The final animatic was completed and some of the video footage of the character rig was added as some footage in the credits.