Hi guys! Today, we wanted to introduce one of the enemies that has been lurking in the background of Hue-manity, the chomper, and show how we brought it to life!

How We Made the Chomper (with ZERO Photoshop!)

Believe it or not, it was created without Photoshop! Our photographer took inspiration from Jerry Uelsmann, a master of surreal darkroom manipulation, and applied similar techniques to craft this creature.

Our photographer used black and white 120 Kodak TriX film on a Hasselblad camera. It's the same type of camera that was used to take pictures on the first moon landing! We photographed multiple hands and mouths, searching for the right combination of gesture and expression. Once we found the right one, the photos were manipulated using multiple enlargers in the dark room to create this monstrosity.   

Animation:

 After our photographer creates the monster, we bring the photography into an animation software called Moho. Moho is a really great animation software where you can create 2D rigs with both raster and vector art.

Since we were using a raster image, we created a mask that would lay over the image. It's similar to a warp tool in other art software, but we can add extra points to the mesh if we want to fine tune certain parts. In this case, we added an outline around the mouth because we wanted to have more control over the mouth expressions. 

Once the mesh was where we wanted it, we added bones to rig it! Even though it's not anatomically correct, we added two bones in the wrist area. Since the chomper has so much weight above the mouth, we wanted it to wiggle a bit when it moved to show the weight on top. This would also give it a little more character. Next, we added target bones for the fingers. Target bones basically anchor down the model. So if we move the root bone, up or down, the fingers will stay in the same spot, like they are glued to the floor. Of course we can still move the fingers individually. The hardest part of the animation was making the fingers move without having them look too distorted. There are some fingers that are very close together, so if you bend one too drastically, it will make the other one look broken. This was still a problem even with adding constraints for how far you can turn the bones, because the fingers would influence how the adjacent limbs bent.

From there, we animated it using the bones for the overall movement. After, we manipulated the mesh's mouth to show that the chomper was breathing and give it fun facial expressions. 

If you’re interested in more behind-the-scenes looks at how we mix photography and animation to create Hue-manity’s world, follow us!