During the Christmas break i have been working heavily on modelling and rigging the small pet tortoise for the film. Although not a main character we felt it added comedic appeal and we plan to have it appear more than what was initially shown in the animatic. Here is a blocked out version of it, rigged and weighted. I am quite pleased with this as it was a good oppertunity to familiarise myself with rigging and weighting and a good building block towards rigging the main characters. It has taken me a while to do but i had to learn all the principles for weighting, which took me quite a while.

I am however quite unhappy with the lack of direction from the Director over this period and although i was given the work to do the tortoise i felt that there could have been alot more guidance; i was not given a clear model sheet as i had to source one myself, which i felt was poor. To add to that difficulty the tortoise approved by the director was then decided inappropriate as the neck came out the shell and not under it. This was decided after i had modelled and rigged the chosen design. This meant i had to remodel it and rig it to fit the new design. I also feel that the group could have done more work; i understand it was a busy period over christmas for everyone as i was working 30 hours a week plus any family visits.etc but yet i still managed to model and rig a character; i feel that other group members did not put in the same commitment over this period. When we finished the term Jonno wanted all characters modelled and half the environments started; we ended up with 1 character being modelled and rigged that being mine....