Roberto Esparza

 

For the fan project based on Annie and Matt (an animated series concept created by Eliely Silva and Alfredo Ponce de la Cruz), I wanted to recreate a set from the animatic of a music video posted on  Youtube . This setting had some modeling challenges, and the most important one was the stone wall of one of the buildings of the street. I made several attempts looking for the best solution to create this wall. At the end of the day, I got the best-looking result, adding a Voronoi Texture to the base model, and baking it into an Image.  Then I assigned that texture to a plane that followed the shape of the wall. With the knife tool, I traced the Voronoi polygons, until I got several ngons with the desired pattern. After that, I reshaped them to have only quads, creating the stone wall. This may not be the most efficient workflow, but it was the easiest way to get the desired result, and it was a great experience of exploration of different methods.

 For a Youtube Channel Project, I worked in the recreation of "Tinker Bell" (a series of movies by DisneyToon Studios) characters since 2020. My first version of the characters wasn't appealing enough and didn't look like the original models, so a year after, I reworked them, having closer results, which is evidence of my 3D modeling progress. The dates shown are in Spanish (Diciembre). Finally, from 2020, I made some tests to replicate Queen Clarion's dress with particles, one of the best challenges of this ongoing project.

Since the beginning of my 3D journey, I was always interested in Rigging. My first big achievement (2 years ago) was finishing my first advanced facial rig, with Shape Keys, of a fan-made model of Hiccup (of the movie "How to train your dragon" by Dreamworks Animation), that doesn't represent the quality of work I can deliver today, but was an important part of my growth in 3D knowledge. After that, I worked on more character Rigs that allowed me to make a complete system for a character based on the movie "Soul" by Pixar Animation, with a Joint based facial Rig. And more recently, for the Annie and Matt fan project (created by Eliely Silva and Alfredo Ponce de la Cruz) I worked on a Rig for one of the protagonists, with facial deformations with bendy bones, IK/FK system for limbs (with switch) and spine, and a tail armature, with which I worked on my latest animation.

Trying to find some passive income, I decided to sell different 3D objects in the platform Turbosquid. It was a great experience, not for the amount of models I could post, but for everything I learned while working with them. I started with a vest collection, with three versions, all ready for cloth simulation, as shown in the display video for the platform. The jacket vest was the most interesting to work in. I wanted it to have a zipper that could work alongside the cloth simulation, following the movement of the fabric, without having individual deformation on each dent. It was a challenge that helped me to develop a workflow for emties tracking, that would be later useful to translate Motion Caption information to a Rig. Another product I thought would be interesting to sell, was a Digital wig collection, with 4 hairstyles, ready to be applied to any model (through shrinkwrap), with a simplified color changing system. I didn't continue making objects for selling, but I'm s...

Some time ago I came across an animation series project called Annie and Matt, created by Eliely Silva and Alfredo Ponce de la Cruz. I found the concept to be really interesting and the character designs quite appealing, so I decided to make a 3D version of the two protagonists. Matt and Annie concepts I created for modeling For the design and model of Matt, the biggest challenge was finding a way of creating interesting shapes and textures to get the 2D charm in the three-dimentional format. The colors of the jacket looked great in the original concept art (by @barbara_rodoodle ), but the texture in 3D seemed plain. Therefore, I decided to add a pattern related to the Day of the Dead (since Matt is a ghost in a Mexican show). Sewing patterns for Modeling The face of both characters had different stages. Each one was closer to the appeal I wanted them to have, until I got the final version, capturing the charm of the 2D designs, with all the advantages of 3D.  Finally, I worked on ...

 For a short movie project, I worked on the creation of David, a gloomy kid with a sorrowful past. For the design, I wanted him to look innocent and tired. His big ears and eyes helped to give him a childish look, while his marks (a trace of his dark past) and messy hair showed how badly life had treated him. After finishing the first version of the model, I felt like the face didn't have the appeal the 2D concept had. So I decided to tweak the proportions, and refine some details, to get the final version of David, ready for production.