Art Spotlight: Bike-original

About

My name is Kazunoko. I’m an animator and game designer in Japan.

In the past, after graduation from art college, I worked as a concept art designer for a game company. I have a little experience with 3D design work too.

Sketchfab work

This bike was made for the animated short film “Alien pizza” (2D animation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkKo7i3gtC4&feature=youtu.be

Two aliens work in a delivery pizza store in space. I created all of the 2D animation, background art, and 3D CG.

Tools

MayaLT(Modeling,animation)
Blender(Rendering)

I had to draw lot of 2D animations, so I did not have much time to work on the 3D.

Now, there are lots of high quality 3D softwares by ZBrush, Substance, etc….
In the case of projects such as this that have many elements, cost-effectiveness and work speed are important, which was why I went with MayaLT and Blender.

I now think that Maya LT was convenient, but I am able to create faster in Blender.

Concept

About 2 years ago the 80s and 90s were just starting to be trendy. I was inspired by “Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit “and “KUNG FURY”, etc.

When I completed this project , cyber punk was becoming very popular. I had never thought that Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell would be remade by Hollywood.

But, Alien pizza received a good reaction, and I’m very happy.

I wanted to make the model pop and create a catchy short film. There are not cartoons about “pizza delivery” and “space” and “aliens”, so I decided to make one.

Reference works

“Lilo and stitch“
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“
“Battlesaurs“ from Toy story
“Dinosaucers“
“Swat cats“
“Rachet and Crank“
And 80’s cartoons, etc.

Modeling

This model has faults, but it was good enough that I could create a 2D animation.

When I modeled this, I went back and forth between adding sketches and modeling.

It needed to have balance and I had to judge objectively whether the model was good or bad.

Textures

When I was working on the texture, I tried to use a toon shader, but it did not generate the intended shadow.

I would need to add a light set up for every cut, and this would be very inconvenient, so I decided to draw shadows onto the texture directly.

Animation

I was modeling all object transformations in 3D. But the bike got redesigned after that, so I drew gadget transformations into the 2D animation. The scene has just few frames.