Sculpting

   I've concluded that the best approach to creating 3D characters is to sculpt them. We started on the puppetry and the Garden Gnomes, only to get distracted back to publishing work. 

   Now that the paintings for the Illustrated Storybooks is mostly finished, we started painting some of the characters to create a 360° view. But this is easier said than done. I'm finding that getting an accurate perspective with separate drawings/paintings is not so easy to do. 

  This leads me to realize that the best way to create a 360° view is to sculpt the character and then scan that sculpture. I know that there is an Ai program that can convert a 2D image into a 3D image file, but from what I understand the character needs to be referenced from all four sides. It might be best to take at least eight slices. By the time we go through all that, we might as well sculpt it.

   I have a kiln, so we can fire the clay. After that we scan the sculpture for 3D. I'm thinking that might be the best approach, mainly because then the characters will be consistent.

   There are "details" to a computerized scan of artwork that seem to make a sculpture highly desirable. Of course, a sculpted Garden Gnomes, not only gives us a master, but also allows mold making. I considered 3D printing, and I hope to explore that, but I think sculptures advance our overall cause more effectively for now.

   That being said, I am looking for persons who may like to sculpt some Gnomes. Let me know if you are interested. If I can find the time, I may try my hand at it. I did some sculpting in the past and I really liked doing that and seeing the results of my efforts.

  I'll post photos if I do.

AG

Animation Studio

    Below is a skeleton laid out on top of an enlarged sketch of Zach. This gives us an idea of the ratio of the bones required. The bones are modified to match the limbs of our drawings. You can see that the upper arms are so modified and adjustable, depending on which character thy are used for. 

 This guides our work in building puppets, both manual and animatronic. 

Animatronics depends somewhat on whether or not IMS buys the machine shop; R.C. Kletzing Inc.

  This also leads me to the subject of Animation. The intention is to incorporate animations into the e-Storybook. For the storybook, the animations can start out to be 2D and transition into 3D, but one of the efforts underway is to convert our characters from 2D to 3D and to set up a work station for that effort, This leads me to believe that we need to establish the IMS Animation Studio. 

So that will be happening. 

   I invite participants interested in this arena to make their voices known.

AG