Blend Shapes - Front View

I have created blend shapes for the wrists, elbows and ankles. The wrists are pretty extreme but I wouldn't bend them that much anyway. I am debating whether the football joints need them too.

Elbow joints

Ankle joints

Ankle joints

Wrist joints

Wrist joints

Back View - Smoothing (skinning) @Alan

For someone reason I really struggled to smooth the back view. I'm not sure that my skinning is completely accurate, especially in the hat's bobble because the bending looks unnatural and I couldn't figure out why. 

I'm also not sure on what to do with the head? When I tilt the head it creates a gap, spoiling the illusion.  However, the king doesn't tilt his head when he is facing backwards in the animation. He is only facing backwards when he is hanging over one of the loop shapes.

Head

Knee joint

Chest joint

Wrist joint

Elbow joint

Hip joint

Lumbar 02 joint

Lumbar 01 joint

Hat bobble

Hat bobble

Front view - smoothing (skinning)

I have now finished skinning the front view by adding some additional smoothing to the joints

Arm bend

Pelvis bend 

Pelvis bend

Chest 

Chest 

Neck leaning to one side

Neck leaning to one side 

Beard movement

Beard movement 

Hip movement

Adjustments to the font

I have slightly adjusted the font by making it smaller and have placed the 'The' above the 'C'.

'The Call' Font

Redesigning the Kings Bedroom @Alan

I have redesigned the Kings bedroom as it doesn't quite keep with the 'UPA' style. It was very solid in its design, compared to the rest of my animation. I have taken my inspiration from the TV show, Gerald McBoing Boing. I looked at how they used lines and minimal blocks of colour to suggest that there is furniture and objects in a room.

This is what I managed achieve:

Redesigned - Kings Bedroom

Front view model of the Mountain King - Blocking out the skinning

I can already see a big improvement in my Skinning skills. Although skinning has taken me a long time with the previous models, this time it seems to be a lot faster. This is because I'm beginning to understand the process more.

My next task is to share and smooth the skinning across my model. I do struggle with this but I think it will be slightly easier this time round.

Snapshots of blocking out the skinning:

Front model - with joints bounded 

Shoulder

Elbow

Wrist

Hand

Knee

Ankle

Football Joint

Lumbar 2

Lumbar 1

Chest

Pelvis

Left Hip

Right Hip

Neck 

Beard Joint 1

Beard Joint 2

                                     

New Ideas for shots 10 - 16

Shot 11: The King is cloned
Perhaps the 'S' shapes could flicker like waves of electricity are passing through them or the kings could be doing more actions to make the scene a bit more interesting.

Cloning (animatic still)

Shot 12: Multiple kings on multiple horn shapes
When they leave in formation they could leave one mountain king on his own, all confused as to where the rest are going. This will then lead nicely into the next shot.

Multiple kings (animatic still)

Shot 13: The king riding on the horn shape

The king goes back and forth on the horn shape, disappearing from view and then reappearing in a new position. I wondered if he could be dodging the lost furniture from his bedroom that seem to be flying or falling in this new universe. Or he maybe he doesn't even notice the furniture that is about to fall or fly into him and he just by chance misses being struck each time. 

King riding horn shape (animatic still) 

Shot 14: The king is ducking from pointy shapes

Not sure how to add to this scene? Maybe we could see the king from a different angle? If it were from a top point of view we could see the king looking up in terror at the shapes. 

Ducking from shapes (animatic still)

Shot 15: Three kings above a shape that expands

On the last and loud note of that shot the kings could blast off out of view when the shape has fully expanded. 

Expanding shape (animatic still) 

Shot 16: Flies past on rocket shape

I don't think I want to change much about this scene. I wouldn't want it to become too busy as there is lot of action happening. Maybe there could be some shapes/objects in the distance, giving the scene more dimension. 

Rockets (animatic still)