After we hit diminishing returns on a character sculpt, we try to have them perform, similar to a live action film. If you think this is your star, go ahead and have them act out a scene with some dialog. Lots of issues are spotted with a test like this, both good and bad.
SPA does not have a single design style that carries over to every film. That's a great way to avoid stagnation, but for development that means we have to custom craft every rig. For Gene, I spent the most time on the face rig ( he's 75% face ). Even though he looks simple, a lot of r&d goes into it.
Each iteration of a rig is not 100% complete. I get a working version in my and the animator's hands quickly. We assess, suggest changes/additions/etc. Then I go back for round after round until we're satisfied that the rig can perform well enough for this task. It's a very similar process to agile development, just on a very small scale with the stakeholders and customer rep being the same person. Development in a small team requires flexibility and objectivity.
Three artists worked on this over three weeks. The character design went through a lot of iterations before we landed on what you see above, and that's not counted in the three weeks. Those iterations were months of work. Omar Smith sculpted Gene, Troy Saliba animated and I rigged, textured and lit.
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