Huckleberry Hound

[largento]

I often see cartoon characters and am seized by the urge to model them in A:M, but never seem to have the time (or a good reason.)

 

I've thrown out reason and decided I'll make the time every once in awhile. :-)

 

One of the ones that I've always wanted to do was Huckleberry Hound...

 

 

[itsjustme]

LOL! Great job, Mark!

[Rodney]

Nice!

 

Folks like to give the old HB cartoons a hard time but they are great stuff IMO.

And the lessons of limited animation are highly applicable to computer animation.

I wish the classic HB shows were playing today instead of some of the craziness they've been showing.

 

Aside: Seeing Huckleberry here reminds me of Martin's story about taking his software to HB and pitching its use to them.

I am confident they'd still be in business today if they would have taken him up on his offer.

[steve392]

Looks a nice use of splines Mark,good model

[robcat2075]

Excellent work, Mark!

[thefreshestever]

the master of spline efficiency strikes again

[fae_alba]

How sad is it that I can remember those 'toons! Great job and O the memories!

[largento]

Thanks, everyone!

 

Those old character designs are deceptively simple, but they were really made for 2D and getting things like the front view and side view to co-exist is a challenge. Took me awhile to realize that part of the trick is that Huck looks slightly down when he's facing the camera, so you can see his eyes over his nose. :-)

 

I don't think anything could have saved HB after the networks assassinated Saturday Morning Cartoons, Rodney. Besides, we're seeing how Warner Animation handles the HB properties after Bill & Joe died and it's not pretty.

 

Thanks, Sebastian. It's just way easier to tweak the model when you don't have a bunch of control points. Same with doing weighting when you're rigging. It's less about efficiency and more about me wanting to take the easy way out. :-)

[NancyGormezano]

He looks terrific!

 

It's just way easier to tweak the model when you don't have a bunch of control points. Same with doing weighting when you're rigging. It's less about efficiency and more about me wanting to take the easy way out. :-)

 

Amen to that.

[robcat2075]

It's less about efficiency and more about me wanting to take the easy way out. :-)

 

In A:M the efficient way is also the easy way and the best way! This is a fine demonstration of that.

[largento]

Thanks, Robert!

 

Well, I got back to him today and finished him up. I'm thinking I may do up a bunch of old HB characters and put them into some kind of poster I can put in my portfolio.

 

Here's Huckleberry Hound in full.

 

 

And for comparison, here's the wireframe:

 

[largento]

 

Hadn't planned on doing this, but thought it would be fun to Walk the Dog, as it were. :-)

 

Here's a 90 frame shot of Huckleberry walking down the road. I modeled Huck with no knees, so I had to figure out some way to reload the foot without scraping it on the ground. I used a sort of clown like waddle and turned out the feet at that point like you would do if your shoes were too big.

 

huckwalkin_s.mov

[Rodney]

Nice. Another scene with a viewmaster feel to it.

 

From initial idea to storytelling animation in two days... that's an impressive workflow you've got going there.

[largento]

Thanks, Rodney!

 

You know how much I love the old viewmaster stuff.

 

Years ago, I looked into creating custom viewmaster reels of The Wannabe Pirates to sell, but the cost at the time was prohibitive. I just checked today and there are now options for ordering a single reel. They're still too high to make for sale (unless you knew you could sell lots of them), but as a novelty, it's not too bad. You can get a single custom reel with a viewmaster in a white box for $30.

 

I'm totally going to do it! :-)

 

The images have to be 1112x955 pixels. I can't find any specific info about 3D settings, but obviously a viewmaster just does plain old stereo images. The fun would be to make the shots as dimensional as possible.

 

I once read an interview with the woman who did a lot of the sculpting work for those old viewmaster reels and she said they would use a single camera and take two shots from different angles. They would even move some of the elements between shots to exaggerate the 3D. Might be fun to experiment with that sort of thing.

[steve392]

Haha that walk works a treat ,love it

[largento]

Thanks, Steve!

 

I hadn't intended to do any of this, but it was a great exercise for thinking about how to make an odd-shaped character move.

[robcat2075]

The viewmaster thing would be an interesting give-away for very high dollar contributors to your next kickstarter.

[NancyGormezano]

So cute! Nice goofy bounce to his walk.

 

The clown foot turn looks a bit strange, awkward on the right foot, more so than the left. How would it look if you lifted/rotated his hip/pelvis up a bit more so that the foot can clear the ground?

 

(This was assuming you only have one leg bone rigged, so there is no knee joint?)

[largento]

That's a good idea, Robert.

 

Thanks, Nancy!

 

I did play with that a little, Nancy, but the rigging is really basic. I cheated by pulling the leg bone up into the body, but I didn't have the ability to tilt the hips to allow for it. Afterwards, I took a look at a Huckleberry Hound cartoon, and he pretty much walked on the toes, so, his feet never tilted back.

[Gerry]

Good tests, Mark! And great job on modeling the character and keeping his 'look' in 3D.

[largento]

Thanks, Gerry!