COLLAB2021 – Los Habaneros – House Interior Team

[Ingmar Franz]

And the fashion-conscious owl of today needs of course a haircut 😉✂:

[Ingmar Franz]

A rig for Michael:

[Ingmar Franz]

Some eyebrows that I’m not satisfied with:

Maybe, there’s a better solution?

[Omar Domenech]

Sculpt them to make it appear as eyebrow hair.

[Keith]

I’ve never seen boss-eyed, purple owl riding a unicycle, while carrying a cement umbrella…..

Now I know exactly what was missing from my life, this is awesome! 👍👍😅

great work @duerer  and @vincav81  

[Ingmar Franz]

Thank you very much, Keith @beefkeef 😀! @dostovel should I make the eyebrows a separate object since I don’t know how to make this fit with the topology?

[Omar Domenech]

Yes, a separate object, sculpt it along with everything you want to sculpt about the owl, and when you are finished you retopo as one mesh and bake.

[Ingmar Franz]

Thank you for the tips, Omar @dostovel 😀!

[Ingmar Franz]

First animation test with Michael pedaling:

[Vincent]

I know that this is an early draft, but here’s a rough side view of Michael Owlson(?) showing where I think that the knees could be better placed. Along with adding some movement to his hips/pelvis so that his feet can reach the pedals better without stretching the bones. By no means should you take any of side view as gospel, I’m just a slight over perfectionist when I see that things could be/look a bit better. I’ve also included a slight brow/eyelid in the side view if you want incorporate that or not.

Other than those very minor nitpicks, amazing work @duerer. It’s going to look very interesting when it’s done.

P.S. are you thinking about sculpting some bits of raised fur clumps to the geometry or just leave it as is?
Something a bit like the feathers in Chicken Run here:

[Ingmar Franz]

@vincav81 Thank you very much for your side view sketches of Michael Owlson  🦉😀! This will certainly help a lot 👍! I already thought at moving Michael from side to side during pedaling in order to make it look more natural, maybe using “Drivers” so that it saves me some time during animation. The optimal angle between the pedals is another point. Are there real world pedals with a different angle than 180 degrees? Another point are the movement and face expressions (“Shapekeys”) in order to evoke the impression that Michael is doing heavy work 💪🦵when pedaling due to the concrete umbrella☔. I’m also planning to sculpt some bigger feathers  that I incorporate in the retopologized mesh. Smaller details should be baken into various textures as done in the April 2021 Collab.

[Vincent]

@duerer I’m no expert on bike pedal angles, sorry.

Other than aiming to get it done, I think I based the pedal arrangement in the first owl sketch on the crankshaft principle(?); how if to piston are set 180 degrees from one another they can’t turn over at a certain point in the stroke. Which is roughly why crankshafts aren’t 180 degrees apart. If that was clear, I don’t know, sorry.

[Vincent]

@duerer After having recently been on an exercise bike, I’d like to correct my previous hypothesis and say that the owl’s hips should tilt on the Y-axis and not on the Z-axis.

Although I don’t know if we aren’t over thinking what is supposedly a desk lamp automaton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton) and making it into a realistic animated character instead?

[Ingmar Franz]

Thank you, @vincav81 for sharing your thoughts on the pedals. I’m thinking at two versions of the owl:

1) As a desk lamp automation similar to the Pinocchio from your linked Wikipedia article:

By Pasimi on Wikipedia here, CC BY-SA 4.0 .

The up and down movement in the animated Gif above is probably necessary in order to ease tensions since the wood puppet can’t tilt its hips as a real cyclist. 

Of course, the owl would then need some kind of support or magic (indicated by some visual effect) to keep it upright.

Since we don’t have electricity, our owl lamp would get it’s light from burning oil or candles.

2) As a guardian on Omar’s stone bridge. In the night, the eyes would turn into searchlights for intruders 😉.  This owl would tilt its hips and the wheel would tilt accordingly. The animation would need to indicate that the owl with its monocycle is pressed onto the ground by the heavy concrete umbrella.

[Vincent]

@duerer 

Here is my rough attempt to include a seat or pole that just goes straight through the owl, ie. make it as though the owls fur is covering the seat (which wouldn’t be modelled). If that’s clear.

And what may turn out to be an optional second wheel, so that there can be at least 1 hard connection between the owl and the base plate to allow the main wheel to move in the first place.

As well as a rough guess at how a Pinocchio-style, wood sculpted owl might work. 

Kind of like this, but this example has the hinges on the inside of the body rather than on the outside.

I apologies if all of this is making what should be your “just for fun” project more complicated than it already could have been.

Mea culpa.

[Author]

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