Conception

In my second semester, in the Basic Animation and Modeling course, we focused on the abstract characters in Roger Hargreaves' book series Mr. Men and in the context of that, I created the first design sketches for Mr. Bogey. When designing the character, it was especially important for me to create a figure as simple as possible. My focus was on its essential characteristics, which explains for example the enormously big nose of the grumpy snail creature.

---

3D Realization

was my first 3D character, as mentioned earlier, the 3D implementation was a very special milestone for me. I used the program Maya for the first time and learned basic modeling and UV mapping techniques.

In the same course, we also learned about 3D scanning and applied this practically with the tool Recap from Autodesk. For the project work at that time I placed my finished 3D figure on a scanned toast slice, which also opened the idea for a later short film.

Nearly 2 years later I recycled my old 3D figure and renewed its UV layout, texture and general shading. The comparison of the two versions is very interesting, showing very well how much my 3D skills have improved during my studies.

Besides the visual upgrade, I also addressed rigging and animation of the character in my 5th semester and after such a long time I finally brought Mr. Bogey to life. I am especially proud of the particle animation of the slime track, as this was my first contact with the nParticle tool from Maya.

Use the Sketchfab Model Inspector for an in-depth look of Mr. Bogey

---

Short Movie

For the course Special Topics in Animation we had the task to create a short film in the fifth semester, which contains a 3D track in at least one shot. A tracked video shot is usually one whose camera position and movement has been captured digitally as accurately as possible in order to add CGI elements to match the camera movement. We worked with the software PFTrack and I shot a small scene in the cafeteria of my university, in which I later implemented Mr. Bogey. I was able to determine the camera movement with the help of bread crumbs I placed on the black cafeteria table.

The shots of Mr. Bogey were created in Maya with the Arnold renderer and later assembled with my film footage in After Effects. The finished short film consists of three different shots in which the 3D figure can be seen. Considering the fact that this short film is my first 3D track, I am really satisfied with the result.

---

3D Printing

A small side project of mine was the 3D printing and painting of Mr. Bogey. A good friend and university colleague of mine owns a 3D printer and gave me the figure as a present for my 20th birthday. I was so enthusiastic about it that I immediately painted it with acrylic paint and gave it a place of honour on my desk. The lower pictures of the figure were taken in June 2020 in the garden of my parents.