L.R.G. AUTOMATON - Full Character Process
THE L.R.G. AUTOMATON is a project that was created during my time studying animation at the Atlantic Technological Univeristy in Ireland. We were assigned the concepting, modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, and animating of our own bipedal/humanoid character.
This design is a combination of some of my favorite pieces of media into something I can call my own. I attempted to create something with a memorable and easy to read design that excels in cohesion between its looks and animation. This was also my very first time hand painting my own textures and working with stylized textures as a whole, only having worked with realism prior to this.
This has been one of my favorite projects to work on, getting to grow from a simple 5 minute sketch to a (i guess what you could call) breathing, functional expressive character.
Key art of the L.R.G. Automaton.
Showcase of the finished model, toaling to around 22k faces. Certain pieces were started from rudimentary meshes (e.g. the torso from a cube) while others were built from vertex silhouettes and extrusions (e.g. the hips and shield arm).
UV map of the model. I used UDIMs to maintain more quality in the final textures and for organization purposes. Textel density was set at a 10.24 units/cm.
I drew heavy inspiration from sources like LoL for this paintjob. The level of detail and values in color drop as we look lower on the model, to focus the viewer's attention on the top half/head.
Turntable showcase of the process from finished base model to fully textured and rigged character.
Showcase of all of the rig's functions. This was created using scripts provided by the P2D "The Art of Effective Rigging" course, as well as following the course loosely for practice while constructing the rig.
Showcase of the 2 setups for the main render and animation showreel. The final shots make use of the actual viewport background as opposed to an HDRI.
I placed heavy emphasis on the mechanical aspect (jittering, cogs & key), as well as the weight and impact of the shield arm. I tried pushing the rig to its limits and making the most of the design (e.g. the legs bending backwards for the run).
The L.R.G. Automaton model.