Despite starting university being very motivated to step into the 2D animation world with no interest in 3D, I did some work experience at a VFX company and slowly grew my interest in the 3D animation world

2D and Stop Motion were the main focuses within my time at university, but I decided to take on the challenge of learning 3D for my graduation film to both gain a basic understanding of the necessary skills within 3D animation and make that first step. 

The making of this short film had many obstacles for me, firstly having no knowledge of rigging and minimal Blender modelling and Maya animation knowledge. Due to the large number of resources on YouTube, I was able to slowly teach myself the skills and bring the character of my film to like. Dikko on YouTube had a great rigging series which was up to date with Maya versions and easy to follow. FlippedNormals also had a great tutorial for retopology in Maya.

I chose to go with this simpler style of modelling after seeing In Shapes from Bluezoo. This style and colourful aesthetic really appealed to me and seemed achievable in the timeframe I had. 

I made my initial character model in Blender as I had played around with the software a little to make some lowpoly models in the past and so that was what I was most confident with. I took the initial model GEO into Maya and did the repoly there. The rigging was completely new to me and took me quite a long time to complete, leading me with minimal time for focus on the animation, making sure I had enough time for rendering, 2D animation and post work.

As my first extensive 3D project, I am very happy with the end result as before the process, I barely knew where to even start.