[Riot Creative Contest 2017] - Katherine Bannock

katieboo

Hi everyone! Im a University Student Animator in my third year. I am based in the UK.
This will be my official progress thread for the competition!
My character is an Elemental Fairy that uses the power of elemental magic creating things such as vines or bubbles to trap or ensnare her victims. She has no handheld weapon because she uses magic only. I will be Creating a movement cycle and a recall animation as my entry! So far I have chosen a Rig called Jill which can be found here: https://gumroad.com/l/xhRK

I hope you enjoy viewing my thread as much as I am enjoying making it!

katieboo

So I have decided that I would like to do a recall animation. As a League Player I have always been a huge fan of how creative the Recall animations are! I think it has the most creative freedom and offers me the best choice to do something really fun and interesting! My next step will be thinking of a character and what their recall would be and then I will choose a suitable rig that fits best with what i'm doing.

katieboo

I have decided to base my character off of a cute fairy type! One downside is that i haven't been able to get hold of a suitable rig for it!
This means that i will be adapting an existing rig. I will be using the  body mechanics rig Jill and will be giving her my own set of wings that im currently making out of a plane.

katieboo

So here are the wings that I have made. I will be attaching them to Jill so that she can do fairy related things such as flying without looking weird. For now they will stay un-textured but can be textured at a later a date.

katieboo

Because I am doing a Recall animation I decided to watch some compilations of the 'best' ones My Personal favourite is Miss Fortune's Star Guardian Recall because its one of my favourite skins to play as and it is reminiscent of Sailor Moon. Because I enjoy these magical types of Recall I though I would make my one in a similar theme to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsqYXyVLR2E
Miss Fortunes is on the bottom right of the video.
I also viewed these Recall animations as well to give me a wider view of the possibilities and creativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r7cvOYLPns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YggQdoz2sJI

katieboo

I now have my rig set up with two planes with a shader to create the effect of wings for my character. I will be starting with Movement cycle animation which, as she is a Fairy, will consist of more of a float/flutter.

katieboo

So I have started my Float cycle that my character uses to get across the rift! This is just two poses in a looped animation. I will keep updated as I add more movement and polish it up.

Float_cycle_Test WIP from Katie Bannock on Vimeo.

katieboo

I have now Sped up the wings to give more of a flutter look than a bird wing look. I now need to start adapting the body to follow the movement better and get a nice look to it.

Float_cycle_2 from Katie Bannock on Vimeo.

katieboo

I was thinking hard about how a fairy/flying creature would fly around the Rift to get from A to B. I decided to watch the champion Spotlight for the champion Kayle and it gave me some insight. One of the main things is that the champion has to be pretty upright in order to conduct their attacks more seamlessly as it switches between the attack animation and their walk/run animation. To match my animation style up with Riot's  I should take some elements of their champion that have similarities and use them in my own work to create a sense of uniformity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn-Y6jawdHM

katieboo

I was finding that my flight cycle was looking more like an idle and needed some real finesse so that it was readable as flying without having to move her forward. I have begun to animate elements of her to give more of a feeling of wind rushing past and creating more drag on her limbs.

wasabiiroll

Not sure if its what you would want specifically (if not just ignore me haha), but I was looking a lot at the star guardian home guards animations where they spin and twirl in their float/flight cycle so maybe that will be helpful  

katieboo

Hi wasabiiroll! I was looking at the star guardians twirling as well which was my base inspiration for this character. What I want to be careful of is making my character look too much like ones that already exist. Its an uphill battle for sure! thank you for the suggestion though

katieboo

Hello everyone! Sorry for the hiatus I was unwell for a while. Im back now though and raring to go and move forward with my work. Watch this space!