Nisse Skogsgump - Animation & Rig

Nisse Skogsgump, a typical farmstead nisse, chops away at a tree. Behind him we can see the days effort. He's efficient and persistent. 

A collaboration between myself and my good friend Gustav Larsson who made the modell, I rigged and animated the character.

Weight is one of the hardest things to get right with animation, so for him to chop his enormous axe into a tree sounded like a perfect animation to do. I wanted a satisfying chop into a tree that you could basically hear without sound and to really sell the weight of the axe.

Hair by Viktor Gustafsson.

Above you can see the rig in action. 

IK spline with advance twist for the spine, IK/FK with stretch and roll joints for the arms, the legs are IK/FK with roll joints and foot roll. The axe has separate attributes to pivot the axe from the blade, the head and the handle which helped when animating the axe chopping into the tree.

Smoke by John McKenna.