THE GRANNY CAT

THE GRANNY CAT

This project is to pay tribute to my granny. I wanted to make a funny weird project that make you smile. So I find this concept on the wild internet :

I sculpted the cat and the old lady separately on Zbrush. I found that old people is so interesting but also more difficult than young characters because of all the wrinkles. And there are not so many good anatomy references. I mostly found old women with swimsuits. So I also looked at my old life drawings.

I did the retopology of the granny first and ZWrap-ed the retopology onto the cat because the topology of the cat doesn't need to be perfect since he is covered in fur. I spent a lot of time trying to find the good compromise between the granny and the cat. For instance, how to deal with the tail? I finally decided to do it separately because the arm of the granny covers the tail. Should it be the solution if my character was to be animated? Not so sure...

I used a Blendshape for the head of Granny and the cat in A-pose using painting weights. The granny and the cat share the same topology and this is is the most important condition for being able to morph the heads. This step is the key of the project. And the steps below arise from this.

Quick Rig helped me to do the main pose. I had to add some joints for the fingers. And Delta Mush solved the issue of shapes deforming, having blenshaped beforehand.

I made the garment with Marvellous Designer. I had a lot of fun because I loved making patterns in my previous job in the fashion industry.

I groomed using Xgen on the two A-pose characters to benefit from the symmetry for the guides. I never used Xgen before and this was so relaxing. But my computer was struggling to display all the guides. Here again the blend shape links the A-pose to the pose character.

Texturing with Mari and Substance.

I'm never satisfied with what I've done, but so far, I made so much progress since my first day at Think Tank!

I will remember to often SAVE the project... Especially as a beginner playing with CG.

Using a MacBook for 3D is not the best option. So many up to date versions were not available on Mac and also a lot of issues only appearing on Mac, and most of the time no solutions... I might have spent 50-70% of my time trying to work around those issues. My mantra: there is always a solution. So I can imagine what you think, and I will answer : YES I learned the lesson, I will buy a PC!

A special thanks for my supervisor at Think Tank Raffael Frank. He is an amazing supervisor! I learned so much stuff with him and he is always encouraging. So THANK YOU Raff!

Kiss and Love from Granny