Project 1 — Concept, Design & Rig Spec
75 points · Assigned Week 1 · Due end of Week 2
Why this comes first
Everything you build for the next fourteen weeks is decided here.
Your concept drawing establishes what the character is. Your rig spec turns that into a
list of what the rig has to do. Your design drawing is the technical document you model from.
The rig spec is also your final rubric — in Week 16 your demonstration animation is screened
against it.
You may bring a character forward from Storyboard & Concept Development. The 2D work you did
there is a legitimate starting point and reusing it is encouraged.
Deliverable 1 — Concept drawing
A finished concept of your character. This is the illustration: personality, silhouette,
proportion, costume, whatever makes the character itself.
It does not need to be new work. It does need to be complete enough that someone else could
identify what the character does.
Deliverable 2 — Rig spec
One page. Use the Rig Spec Checklist.
Work through the required list, elect at least one item from the middle list, and take on any
optional items your character genuinely needs.
For every elective and optional item, write a shot reason — something the character does,
not something it has.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| "She has wings." | "She lands and folds her wings against her back over about eight frames." |
| "He carries a hammer." | "He swaps the hammer between a hip holster and a two-handed grip mid-swing." |
The strong version tells you what to build.
A word of advice: marking every optional box does not earn points. It earns you fourteen weeks
of work you may not finish. Choose what your character actually needs.
Deliverable 3 — Design drawing
A technical document, not an illustration. Registered in Photoshop using guides — the same
technique you used on your 2D characters.
Views required
- Front
- 3/4
- Side
- Back
- The opposite side, if your character is asymmetrical
Registration
Place horizontal guides across all views at:
ground · ankle · knee · hip · waist · chest · shoulder · chin · eyeline · top of head
Add a vertical center guide on front and back.
Heights and widths must read identically across views. If your shoulder sits forty pixels
higher in the side view than in the front view, you will build that error into your model, and
you will find it in Week 5 when the deformation is wrong.
Callouts
Annotate anything that needs explaining:
- How props are held, and with which hand
- Wings drawn both tucked and spread
- Detachable pieces
- Hard-surface elements that articulate
- Joint locations that aren't obvious from the silhouette
Your rig spec gets annotated onto this sheet, so the modeling decisions and the rigging
requirements sit on the same page.
Export
char_front.png,char_side.png,char_back.pngat identical pixel height- The 3/4 view is form reference only — it does not become an image plane
These load into Maya as image planes in Week 3.
Submit
- Concept drawing (image)
- Design sheet, layered (
.psd) and flattened (image) char_front.png,char_side.png,char_back.pngat matching pixel height- Rig spec, one page
What you're graded on
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Concept drawing — complete, readable, communicates what the character does | 10 |
| Rig spec — required list worked through and understood | 10 |
| Rig spec — electives chosen appropriately for the character | 10 |
| Shot reasons — describe actions, not features | 10 |
| Design views — all required views present, including opposite side if asymmetrical | 10 |
| Registration — heights and widths match across views on shared guides | 15 |
| Callouts — everything non-obvious annotated, wings both tucked and spread | 5 |
| Export — three images at identical pixel height, correctly named | 5 |
| Total | 75 |
Common mistakes
- Design views drawn beautifully but not registered — the most expensive mistake in this project
- A rig spec listing features instead of actions
- Wings, tails, or props drawn in only one state
- Front and side exported at different pixel heights
- Choosing a character whose design you love but whose rig you cannot scope in fourteen weeks
See also: Rig Spec Checklist · Week 1 · Project 2