Animated Dragon Showreel

This project was a self assigned  task. I had never animated a quadruped before, and to motivate me to do so I chose one of my favourite fantasy creatures. 

I started off by creating locomotive loops, using principles I already knew and it allowed me to get more comfortable with the RIG and a creature I've never animated before. 

I originally started off doing a walk, but found it too difficult and couldn't fathom where to start. This link was my first ever attempt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKLWlUnzEXo

I instead focused on doing a flight, the process made it a lot easier for me to understand. Focus on the serpent like movement of the neck -> body -> tail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCACPWl9Dz0

Doing the flight animation I learn't a lot and it made me for comfortable and ready to try the other animations.

This project taught me so much, when to use IK and FK. How to offset keyframes, when, why and how far to offset them by. How to make looping animations not pop/ pause when it repeats. Tail mechanics, and more. 

This project was incredibly stressful to begin with, but ending up being a load of fun. 

Here are some other early development animations. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSM0Fps_GqQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib4jisjxWYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBmfQ78ZMSI