I don't think anyone has every seen the merlion swim. Except maybe for this video that I stumbled upon while searching for references: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcTsWfPq0Fc
(By the way, another notable style reference is this project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q256NEoJ2o. It's pretty welldone in my opinion.)
So anyway, the NDP committee paid a visit to my studio early this year, asking if we wanted to participate in this year's Singapore National Day Parade - by animating a merlion swim sequence.
Fast forward a few months later... we spent weeks and months working overtime on weekdays and even sacrificing our weekends to do this project (honestly I think it was all great fun bonding with my colleagues and putting on weight together from all the pizza that we ordered).
It was also a great opportunity for us animators to do some hand-key animation from scratch (since we've been working with motion capture data day in and out).. Even though I think the animation could be very much improved on, I guess the warm response from the crowd made all our effort worth it.
Some stills of shots that I worked on:
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| (Close up shot of merlion talking) Body and facial animation done by me Lip sync done by my colleague, Chris |
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| Animation done by me |
It was a great experience working on this project with my animation team because we get to really learn from one another (it's a huge difference compared to when I was a student in 3dsense because I was the only animator in class and there was no one I could compare notes with).
Look! We're even on the news!
(fast forward to 1:30)
