Stop-Motion Puppet Fabricator
MIME EXPRESSIONS: Le Charade
*Responsible for all 3D modeling & expression fabrication. Art direction by Erika Totoro.
This is a shot from Le Charade that used a total of 10 replacement faces and had a total of 26 transitions. Animated by Thaddeus Varness. I matched the transitions in Maya to show when they occur.
Expression Workflow
Expression sheet created by Erika Totoro.
Expression Sheets: Expressions were made on a shot-by-shot basis. When launching a new shot, a LAV (live action video) is shot by the Director and Lead Animator. With the LAV, an expression sheet is made that I reference for modeling.
3D Modeling: With the expression sheet, I model each face individually in Autodesk Maya. I start with the Mime's base expression and adjust the geometry to achieve the desired expression. Depending on the action and expression sheet, there are instances where I have to add an in-between so that the facial movement can be more fluid. When modeling, I group each expressions assets so that I can keyframe each expression and create a pose-to-pose pop-thru animation. This allows me to make sure each expression is working together in sequence.
Modeling Process: My modeling process starts with the mouth, which is a separate piece of geometry from the face. I model all of the mouths needed for the shot before modeling the main surface of the face. As more expressions are made, I am able to pull mouths from previous expressions and adjust those to speed up the process, versus starting with the base mouth. Once the mouths are finished, I move on to the main surface of the face. I think about the face in three separate sections: the brow bone, cheeks, and chin. I almost always start with the brows and then move to the bottom half of the face. After finishing all of the expressions, I roughly pose the eyebrows, eyelids and eyes to get a better feel of how the expressions will look with all of the assets. The expressions in sequence are then shown to the Director and Lead Animator for notes and final approval.
File Preparation for Printing: Once the expressions are approved, they are individually exported to their own file and prepped to be submitted for printing. This consist of using the smoothing and boolean tools. Expressions are then exported as .STL files and imported into Autodesk Meshmixer to check the scale and position of the models.
In total, there are fifty-five fully finished expressions that were used in Le Charade. Some were re-used for multiple shots and some were used exclusively for one shot. More behind the scenes of fabrication for expressions can be found here.