Jeffrey A. Unay. © 2000-08. All rights reserved.
The last project I worked on at Tippett Studio was a test to get Charolette's Web. For the test, I built Templeton the Rat. I modeled the rat from scratch*, did the fur sculpting/grooming and a facial rig. I worked on this for about two weeks....til my very last moments at Tippett. The texture painting and fur shading was done by Nate Fredenburg (now Tippett's Art Director). I remember still sitting with Joel Friesch, VFX Supervisor, til a little bit after 7pm tweaking the model when everyone already has hit the beer garden for Beer Fridays. I really enjoyed working with Joel so it's not as bad as it sounds:)....I grabbed a beer anyway and then went back to work. Good times! I later saw some animations of the rat that they did to get the project, and it looked absolutely amazing. I can't say I'm totally surprised because Tippett has some of the finest artists and animators in the industry working there. I was happy to see they totally kicked butt on this project. Templeton looked amazing in the movie thanks much to Sven Jensen, Lead Modeler. Sven is a facial rigging mastermind and superb clay and digital sculptor. His work on Templeton is top tier stuff. If you haven't seen this film yet, I'd go run out and get it. You won't be disappointed.
Click the above image to go to a CG Society article with Tippett Studio on the making of Charolette's Web.
* I tend to emphasize the idea of sculpting a hero level character from scratch, usually beginning from a polygon cube, because it can be quite a rare thing these days. Usually in film production, the designing of a character is done first as a clay maquette and then scanned for the artist to trace in a 3d package. It can feel more like a technical process more than anything....just gotta appreciate those times when the opportunity comes up to design and create completely in 3d.
Charolette's Web (2006)
Feature Film Directed by Gary Winick
Feature Film Directed by Gary Winick