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Kobb — The Value of Life Drawing
Published: 2008-03-08 15:56:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 1525; Favourites: 29; Downloads: 0
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Description
It's so interesting what seeing something actually moving around in three dimensions will teach you that Google images and bad quality online videos can't.The main characters of my group's student film are armadillos, and we went to work trying to design them, armed with photo reference and imagination. We are currently at something rather like the left-hand drawing, though the one pictured here is the simplified storyboard version - the actual design is a tad more interesting.
But then we went to the zoo yesterday and got to observe real armadillos close up - they put us in a room with 'em and let them skitter around while we drew and filmed them. And rather like Mickey Mouse has had all the "mouse" neutered out of him, we fear that our design has suffered the same fate.
Not like cartoonifying is a bad thing necessarily (our 'dillos do need to be bipedal), but we're pretty eager to dive in again and try to incorporate more of the cool features and movements characteristic of actual armadillos.
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Comments: 20
I like your armadillo dude! 
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That is true! However, we were specifically curious about the three-banded because it's the only kind of armadillo that can roll into a completely closed ball, and balling up was something we thought the character would need to do early on. The great thing about animation, though, is you can cheat a lot of things, so there wasn't a need to redesign much. We were just surprised to find the real thing was half-curled even when walking around! And as it turned out, we didn't keep the part where she rolled into a ball anyway. X)
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Oh!
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Does this mean I can use this design? Because my cartoon armadillo is in need of an overhaul and this is one of the better ones.
Joking aside, awesome work here! I'm not sure if I'll ever get to see this student project of yours and given the date this was put up It could have already been made. Either way, awesome job with the character designing here!
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That's happened to me before, too much actually. Just goes to show how important life drawing really is
Though I do love that armadillo design on the left
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Nine banded armadillos do look more like the cartoony one, so all is not lost. 
But the armadillos were so fun to watch. One ran on a smooth floor and actually slipped and fell onto its side, where it played dead for a minute or so, just in case. I thought it was hilarious.
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Haha, animals seem so funny in real life. There was this emu at the zoo that came right up to the gate, and it started staring my mom down. Then it tried to eat her coat
That'd be awesome to see some real armadillos!
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awesome work, Life drawing is always helpful, I sometimes also bump into the same situation were I draw some from my imagination or reference, and when you draw the real thing in front of you , you get quite a totally different idea going on
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That is so cool...! Sounds like you're having a great time!
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I like real armidillo's forehead plates, that portion has a lot of character in my eyes.
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Omgomgomgg. xDDD I love your cartoony armadillo! He made me squeal~
The ears got me.. ;3 I think he looks a lot more like an aardvark though. Aarvarks are amazing (one of my favorite animals, come to think xD), but very different from armadillos. (:
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Apparently armadillos and aardvarks are related, so the comparison may not be all that bad. We're thinking about looking at the ears again for that reason though.
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Yeah.. x3 Gawd, I love the ears, though, heee~ Good luck with picking a design, lawl. C:
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You're armadillos are so cute!! Where I live, you don't have to go to a zoo to see armadillos, roadrunners, rabbits or coyotes, though. They're all here! (And unfortunately, rattlers too)
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This is my main problem with many "tradional" toon animals: they don't look like the animal anymore, the animators/designers make all the special features disappear or they overdo them so much it looks almost genereic again.
Yet I think this toony armadillo looks like this species: [link]
and so it still bears a certain similarity
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Yeah, and the actual design has more detail. That type of armadillo (nine-banded) is more the direction we were going throughout, but it's nice to take a step back and see where we can preserve more naturalism even in a cartoon character.
We aren't going to start over, but maybe think about fine tuning some things. It's just interesting to see how much the experience of having the critter scrabbling around underfoot changes the way I look at things.
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Hahah, I kinda wanna draw armadillos now just because they're so freaking awesome. Are you guys completely re-doing the designs?
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I don't think we will... it's too late to go back to the beginning. What we have is armadillo-like enough... but we're kinda hoping to see some of the cool features (like the headplate) incorporated a little more, but there are armadillos that look a lot like the one we have. I'm already excited for a rigged model so I can do some animation tests on that scuttling walk. It'll be fun to transfer to a bipedal critter. X)
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Yeah! I bet animation is going to be super fun for your film! -jealous- I think ya'll should put int he headplate. I like that a lot.
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I don't really get a chance to draw animals from life.
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