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Character Sizing
I wanted to do some test painting (which I cover in a bit) and to do so I needed to obviously have something to paint. As I've now decided that I want to do a Mario themed zoetrope, I thought it would be a good idea to 3D print a Mario character. I've shown my settings for the 3D print in the slicing software below. I chose to do the thinnest layer thickness possible just so I could get as much detail as possible.
3D Printing Settings.mp4On my desk at college I have a few 3D printed models that I've painted at home just for a bit of fun, and the one I chose to use for this little experiment is 70mm tall. I've also got a turntable (which could be used for potential animation tests etc), as well as a phenakistoscope. The phenakistoscope has 16 slits in it (roughly the number of frames my zoetrope will have), so I decided to measure up my painted model at college and then line it up with one of the slits of the phenakistoscope, put it on a turntable and take a photo. Then I moved the model to the next slit and took another photo. The point to doing all this is that I could then overlay the images in photoshop so that I could see how close these models would be on a zoetrope. I've shown the photoshopped image below.
I thought that these models were a bit too close, especially if they'd end up being animated and moving all around the place. So I decided to print my test model at 50mm tall.
Test Painting
I've chosen to 3D print this model in black. The reason I've done this is because I want to experiment with dry-brushing. The benefit of having the model black is that when I drybrush the model white, because the model is already black the unpainted areas will be really dark, which will provide a good contrast.
I'm fairly happy with the result. You can see how dry brushing brings out the shadows and highlights and this was good practice for me heading into production.
Storyboards/Animatics
For the storyboards below I only annotated the journey of one blue kart. I did show another blue kart at the beginning, and this was just to show that the karts get hit by the shell and then take the place of the kart behind. There would be an endless loop of blue karts falling behind one place every loop of the animation. (I really should've added a drawing of another blue kart doing the same animation ahead of the annotated kart, but this was something I forgot to do while making the storyboard).
Concept Sketches
Unfortunately my drawing skills are next to none, however I've still provided some concepts below for character design, kart design etc.
Character Design
I really like how you can see the outlines of individual squares on the model, but the squares themselves aren't completely flat - they still provide 'roundness' to the character. I'm not entirely sure how I would go about achieving this effect in 3D modelling, so it could be a good challenge for me.
I like these sharper looking edges because it adds a bit of 'grit' and unease to the character. I spoke in the ideas section about examples of evil characters having harder edges on their outfits, and I used that to inform my idea development for the design of my characters.
I loaded the above image into photoshop and changed the colour of the character to see what it could look like. I've obviously chosen red and black as they are the main colours that evil characters are dressed in.
If I were to have the character red, that would be a lot easier than having him black. I want to dry brush my models to get a good contrast between the shadows and highlights, and if I did that I could go over with a more transparent red paint to give it the red colour. However I worry that if I wanted the character to be black, you either wouldn't see the dry brushing, or the whole model would end up looking more white (as a result of dry brushing). For this reason I'm likely going to paint my character red.
Vehicle Design
There are a range of karts available in the Mario Kart games, and I need to choose one that will still be obviously from Mario Kart, but also easy to 3D print.
The obvious choice would be the standard kart from the latest Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 8. In the game you are also able to drive on the side of walls and even upside down in some cases, which is why the wheels in this image are sideways. Looking at the wheels in this direction gave me a thought though - I could 3D print my karts with the wheels sideways. If I can get them to be touching the kart then there would be no need for supports on the 3D print in that region, I also wouldn't need to print the wheels separately and then attach them later. If I 3D print my wheels sideways attached to the kart, it will make my life a lot easier, save a lot of time in both designing the kart in software as well as assembly, and it will arguably look cooler anyway.
When the karts in the game have their wheels sideways, they hover above the circuit, so I would have to make my karts hover too. However this would be really easy - I could place a small stick or mount underneath the kart to prop it up a bit. This wouldn't be visible unless you were really trying to look for it, another positive to having sideways wheels.
Because this is a much newer looking kart, it gives 'mean' vibes. I'm not too sure how to describe it, but if you've ever watched Cars 3, this standard Kart is Jackson Storm compared to Lightning McQueen - the new guy is really fast, but you have respect for the older racer because of his past success and feel bad for him. Because of this, I think that this kart would be good for the evil character to drive - the one throwing the shell at the victim. I also think it would be good to have the kart in black (linking back to my earlier colour theory research) to make it more obvious that this character is the villain in this short story - a red character driving a black kart.
Another kart I was thinking of using was the Pipe Frame Kart. I really like the design of this kart, it's still easily recognisable as something from the Mario Kart games, but I wouldn't choose this model because of the small details. There are a lot of very thin pipes which would be difficult to 3D print, would also require a lot of supports (and with that comes the risk of snaping the pipes when removing the supports) and I also can't guarantee that the model would be very sturdy, and could potentially snap.
Just for reference, the things highlighted in orange are the supports, and they give a platform for the 3D printer to print on top of, otherwise it would be trying to extrude filament in mid-air.
This particular kart is called the Quick B Dasher. I like it's retro F1 throwback style look, and I feel like it could catch the eye of classic racing enthusiasts too, while the big M on the front still keeps it easily recognisable as something from Mario Kart. If I were to 3D print this kart, I would again likely choose to have the wheels sideways just because it makes the printing process a bit easier and means there wouldn't have to be as many, if any supports.
Continuing my Cars 3 analogy from earlier, this car is the Lightning McQueen to the standard kart. Because it's older, you have more respect for it and care for it more because you're aware that you have to be very delicate with it. I think that's a good basis for this car to be the car driven by the victim in my animation - the character that gets spun round. I think I will keep this kart white - it is a pure and innocent colour.
Production Schedule (and newer iterations)
The image above is the first iteration of my production schedule. This is more of an ideal at this stage as it's always hard - basically impossible - to predict how a project will go. However I feel confident that I can largely stick to this, but I'm also aware that there will inevitably be problems that come up that I haven't considered.
The image above is my most up-to-date gantt chart. I'm realising that I won't have much time at all to assemble everything, so I have had to sacrifice some time on the evaluation. However I've noticed this week (Week Commencing 28/04) that I'm much better at written work than I thought I was, so it's not a concern at the moment. However I would still prefer to have more time on the evaluation, but this is more of a realistic prediction than an ideal.
The image above is my most up-to-date gantt chart. Thankfully I've had a very productive week and got everything painted and is all ready for assembly now, so I've managed to gain a day back on the evaluation.
The image above is the final gantt chart for this project, this is how the project actually went. I corrected the last week as we only had until the Wednesday for FMP, not Friday so I made sure I corrected that.
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