origami croc

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Sun May 06, 2007 4:31 pm

I haven't posted anything up here for ages, so here is something I'm working on at present:
origami crocodile
Trying to keep everything simple...

J

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Sun May 06, 2007 7:58 pm

nice

Gnaws · Post by **Gnaws** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:33 pm

Love the style. Does this guy have any friends?

Nicely done.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun May 06, 2007 10:19 pm

Interesting character! Does have any animation (I only see a still image)

Well done Jahnocli

Best
Genete

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Mon May 07, 2007 1:30 am

Thanks -- I'm developing a story about a fascist zoo -- so he definitely has some enemies! No animation as yet -- having trouble getting him to move in a cross between a convincing cartoon character and a paper cutout...Did I mention I was trying to keep it simple?

LittleFenris · Post by **LittleFenris** » Mon May 07, 2007 7:34 pm

That is a GREAT character. Can't wait to see him and his buddies/enemies animated! Good luck w/ the project. Show us some test animations when you have them done.

human · Post by **human** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:28 pm

Makes me think of the beatnik era, say 1957.

Needs those loopy kidney shapes or amoeba shapes and twinkly stars in the background... know what I mean? (eight-pointed stars with little balls on the points)

Think: Formica, malted shakes, and Bryl Creem.

If a character gets dizzy, don't surround him with chirpy birds or stars, but little atomic symbols instead...

Colors: avocado green (as here), ochre, pink, white, teal, battleship grey.

Just sayin', is all...

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:57 am

Thanks, guys! Ha ha -- yeah, I love that period! I'm doing some test animations now; anybody know where I can get picture references for a 3/4 view waddling origami crocodile? I mean, I've looked high and low but I just can't find any...

human · Post by **human** » Tue May 08, 2007 4:08 am

It seems to have gone unnoticed that the highest achievement in animation during "Fantasia" must have been the lengthy and incredibly intricate hippo ballet -- featuring delightfully sinister crocodiles.

I wonder whether anything that tricky has been attempted in animation since.

Would those wonderful crocs help inspire you?

p6r · Post by **p6r** » Tue May 08, 2007 8:50 am

Very good picture and idea !
I like the style !

Bravo...

6R

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:43 am

human wrote:Would those wonderful crocs help inspire you?

Do you know, that's a really good idea. I have the old Preston Blair book with the rough drawings for that, too -- and I never even thought of it!

6R wrote:Very good picture and idea ! I like the style ! Bravo...

Thanks, Philippe!

LittleFenris wrote:That is a GREAT character. Can't wait to see him and his buddies/enemies animated! Good luck w/ the project. Show us some test animations when you have them done.

Thanks! I'm doing some test animations this week -- will keep you posted...

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:26 am

Well, the Preston Blair crocs had legs which were way too "human", so that didn't help much; I just had to think of the legs "rowing" themselves along over the ground. Here is my first (rough) attempt:
croc waddle 1
The tail is way off!

human · Post by **human** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:40 am

jahnocli wrote:Well, the Preston Blair crocs had legs which were way too "human", so that didn't help much; I just had to think of the legs "rowing" themselves along over the ground. Here is my first (rough) attempt:
croc waddle 1
The tail is way off!

Perhaps you could use some inspiration, of the Banality of Evil or Surrealisme of Pop Culture variety. Have I got the ticket for you:

http://www.archive.org/details/Alligator_Farm_FL_1990

This is unintentionally funny, in a horrifying, absurdist way. Disclaimer: the source footage is VHS, making it technically unusable for photo reference, alas.

Check out particularly the entrance to Gatorland: a huge croc maw!

muuvist · Post by **muuvist** » Wed May 09, 2007 5:21 am

Hi jahnocli, I think your croc design looks great. I hope you don't mind but I've made a small animation with your croc to demonstrate a bone consraint technique I discovered by accident but couldn't figure out how to use it until your croc came along.

The technique is as follows:
- use the 'scale bone constraint' and give your constrained bone a value greater than 1 (4 works well).
-now go to frame 1 and scale the control bone and you'll notice the constrained bone flips 180 at the big end of the bone.

If you use this with a flat object (eg a piece of paper) you can achieve a fake 3D effect because the object appears to foreshorten and then flip over.
This is where your croc comes in because it's constructed from flat planes and the movement looks convincing.

Of course you could probably achieve all this with point animation, but it's good to use bones if you can.

Go here and look at the movie and you can also download the anime file.

http://gregingram.googlepages.com/croctest

I've also posted a quickly done animation of a flying carpet that demonstrates the same technique.

OK so it's not 3D but you can do anything you want with animation, right?

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Wed May 09, 2007 9:06 am

This forum is great! Thanks for that link, human -- I downloaded one of the Mpegs (27meg version) with Star downloader, so I can have some reference. You're right -- it is strangely fascinating...

Muuvist -- that is a great technique! Not only do I not mind, I'm very grateful to you for sharing. Hope to have something soon. This idea is a lot more elegant and efficient than anything I was contemplating, and that has to be a good thing...!

you can do anything you want with animation, right?

You certainly can -- that's why it's endlessly fascinating...

J

origami croc

origami croc

scale bone technique