Zann's
clothes were quite a bit more difficult than the student's clothing.
I suppose I could have taken another easy way out, and given him a
turtleneck sweater and sweatpants. But I wanted him to have more of a
grandfatherly look. However, this goal wasn't always so clear to me.
By
chance, I had the television on, and Seinfeld was running in
syndication. (It seems like if I really cared, I could probably find
Seinfeld on tv at any time of day; when I was a kid, I Love Lucy was
like that.) Interestingly enough, the episode called "Old Man"
came on, and I saw exactly what I wanted in terms of Zann's
character. There was no way that I was going to try create his crazy
hair and mustache. But I love the way the old man looked in his
sweater. So I was determined to achieve that style.
Having
modeled human characters wearing all sorts of clothing for Homeless
Guy, I had some idea about how to get the effect that I was aiming
for. I would just have to add a bit more detail than I did on
Homeless Guy. This wasn't so bad.
Looking
back now, I do think that I went a bit too cheap on his pants. I
should have modeled some additional seams on the side of his pant
legs. In fact, I had wanted to initially. But I couldn't get it quite
right, so I left it out. I hope the viewer doesn't mind too much.
The
one spot where I knew I wanted to get interesting was with his shoes.
I thought of Zann as that crazy old man that wears sandals, even
though his ingrown toenails are bloody with infection, coupled with
fungus. I've seen such shameless people a lot in my life. I thought
that Zann should be so shameless. However, while I did give him
sandals, I didn't get add medical specimens to his feet.
The
other part of Zann that was more difficult than I expected was his
neck. This is for two reasons. One is that I wanted him to have a
double chin. However, I just couldn't make that work. Next time I
will try harder.
But
the other challenge that Zann's neck presented could not simply be
ignored. Being that he had a neck, a sweater, and a shirt, he had two
collars that would have to stick up, and then come back down. Because
I had accomplished this with some effect on Homeless Guy, I didn't
prepare for the challenges that emerged when adding real detail. When
layers of geometry stack upon each other, it gets a bit confusing
keeping track of what's what, and which geometry I am trying to
modify. This would be especially problematic when animation setup
came around. So in the end, I accepted that I had to make Zann's
collar a bit more simple than I might have preferred.
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