A few shots and creature animation tests I animated for 'The Croods: A New Age'
1. Film Shots - Animated two small shots in the film. Required animating the interactions between main characters Guy and Dawn, as well as their sloth accessories Belt and Sash, the Narwalrus that pulls up the basket, and the various props they interact with.
2. Wolfspider dev test - When rigging the wolfspider body, I needed to prove that the system was going to be usable for animating a complicated character. I came up with this test to show off the wolf to spider leg transitions.
3. 'Chunky' muscle dev test - As the body rigging lead on the show, I had to set up stylized muscle systems for a lot of the characters, including Chunky. I animated this simple test to showcase what the default muscle simulation settings would give the animators.
4. 'Octocrab' performance test - This character ultimately didn't make it into the film, but it was a complicated character to rig and animate. I came up with this test to see how usable my tentacle rig was going to be. I animated everything: The Camera, Octocrab, and Grug.
5. 'Wigusus' flight development test - There were ideas pitched by the story team on the role of Gran's wig 'Wigusus' in the film. When Director Joel Crawford asked the rigging team how feasible it would be to get the Wigusus character to fly or glide in a convincing way, I came up with this animation test to see how we could sell it. While the flight happens quite a bit differently in the final film, this test proved that the character design and rig was robust enough to do what they needed it to in animation.
Special thanks to the following animators for their help and guidance:
Jakob Jensen
Liron Topaz
