What we did
We took the artwork from the Paul Strickland books and created a new series of 3d dinos, including some new additions. The process was still the same, design, 3d build, texturing, rigging, posing and rendering. The project is an ongoing one so keep checking in for news and updates. Or join our mailing list...
Prop shop
The first couple of dinosaurs were built physically at prop shop, overseen by the Natural History museum. Using a high res digital scan of the physical models for reference, we then build the models in 3d and went through a further iterative process. Each dinosaur has had full consultation from the NHM's head of palaeontology in respect of size, shape and form to ensure our dino's are anatomically accurate, whilst in keeping with the look and feel of a brand intended for pre-schoolers. A balance of artistic license and scientifically sound dinosaurs.
Water colour technique
In Paul's original artwork (left), he uses beautiful water colour droplet techniques to create the wonderful palette and textures on the dinosaurs, he's even used the same specialist paper stock over the entire works. So emulating this digitally was always going to be a significant part of the process. Once we hit the technique with ROAR, we could apply the same process across all the other dinosaurs.
Skinning a dinosaur ***
After creating the base colour (right), we made a pelt map, where ROARs skin is fully spread out, from which we work into it in Photoshop, recreating the look of Pauls texture.
Retaining the feel of the original artwork
Once we got the texture right, with his lovely mottled effect, we could move on to posing the fella!
Strike a pose!
Rough sketches are a useful point of reference for the artist posing the character. We manoeuvre its rig (for the body) and morph targets (for expressions) into position and then render this out as a still image, much like we would when animating except only one frame is needed.
Consistency across the group
We've created 8 dinosaurs to date (with more to come!) and throughout the process there has been an element of refinement and review once a dinosaur is complete, ensuring each new dinosaur is identifiable to the brand and fits in the collection, without loosing their individual characterisation. We looked at colours, scales and textures throughout to keep everything just so with this group of lovable characters.
***No dinosaurs were harmed during the making of this production
