Along came a spider... and a dragonfly!

Howdy folks!
The past spring break wasn't all about fun'n'games for yours truly (with the exception of attending a friend's stag do on friday). Between finishing the room where my animation will take place, sculpting more props and toys to make it look like there are kids actually living there and sculpting and rigging the models, I've been pretty busy indeed... in particular, because I wasn't too keen on the look of my spider.

After a surgery a few weeks ago with our module leader (Andy, a good sport...;-) who kindly showed me how to sculpt a spider from scratch, I went home and started my own in similar fashion...

However, I soon realised that this wasn't going to do it for me, and that was for two reasons:

1) As much as I tried to work on the proportions and various other details, the spider still looked unmistakinly 'Andy'. If you check his blog and see his digital sculpting, you'll know what I mean.

2) Because of reason N.1, the model didn't fit the scene a bit... If you look at the work in progress of the room a couple of posts below, you'll notice that the proportions and the general look is pretty realistic.

In such an environment, the above model would've looked more like one of the toys instead of the main character, unless I completely re-design the room to fit the style of the spider (something like the house that Snow White shared with the dwarves in the Disney film, or maybe like those mushroom architectures where the Smurfs lived in...) and I certainly don't have time for that, not at this point!

Plus, this is an animation project, and the animation part is what I have to concentrate on as much as possible because even if I consider the concept art side to be my stronger suit, we are going to be marked on the quality of the animation, not the concept behind it!

The new spider however, whilst maintining some cartoony details like the glasses and the goggley eyes, looks more like a real spider (expecially from a distance!) and fits the environment much better.

Also, I finished sculpting and rigging the dragonfly that's going to wreck havok in the animation... I may decide to add some transparency to the wings... I don't know yet, we'll see...