Skeletons and Skin's

Skeleton

So a bit of progress has been made. Lucy was given a basic skeleton complete with a 'ribbon spine'. Ideal for a cartoon character for the squash and stretch features it possesses. Its a fairly quick process, the long bit is the next bit. The skinning- attaching the skeleton to the model and ensuring movements between joints are corrected.

                             The ribbon spine completed            Addition of legs, hips and pelvis

                  Addition of the arms shoulders and hands              Finally the head

Lucy's complete skeleton!

Skinning

Below are playblasts of skinning tests as I was adjusting the weights between joints. These corrections help make the characters movement more natural when the joints are later manipulated during animation.

Below is a sample of the arm movements. Testing the wrist, elbow, shoulder and clavicle.

This bit is of the most fiddly and long winded section of the character. The hands and fingers

Now for the main body. Movement shown in the chest, spine joints and also the pelvis

Next comes the motion in the legs. Testing the motion of the hips and knees. 

Finally comes the motion in the feet and ankles. These ones bothered me most in that the ankle pointing down looks too soft. The thing is, there is only one ring of vertices assigned to the ankle joint itself.

The only bits left to do are to add joints to the bunches in Lucy's hair so they can react when she moves and the same with her skirt. I'm still not entirely clear on how to achieve this but I'm sure I will work it out shortly!