Jeff

Jeff is the main character in Amazing Adventure. My ultimate goal with him was to make him an incompetent nerd, but to NOT look/act like the extreme stereotype often found in media (think 1950s taped glasses/pocket protector guy). Unfortunately, as a result of this mindset, and also working with him for the last two years, I get the feeling I really just animated a cynical version of myself in this short. Which isn't really a bad thing, because this is my first short, but I better not keep this a trend in my career. I originally conceived Amazing Adventure as a short where the a guy plays the game, and watches himself continually fail from the couch. Thus, jeff was not as important in this stage, and he was much more generic than he is now. Once I decided to put him in the game and do everything himself, he got a lot more personality and importance as a character, because now you had to somewhat care about his failures. I think he turned out pretty okay, with enough to him that you can laugh at him yet also just vague enough that you can project yourself onto him.

Making Jeff turned out to be a real group effort, being the most complicated part of my project. In my original boards, I drew some of the first iterations of Jeff. The following summer, I got a roommate at the time, Einar Másson, a kickass artist, to design him along with the rest of the characters in the short. I got friends Dan Valvo and Lindsay Johnson to model and texture the character, respectively, and both of whom were former grad students at AAU. I did all the rigging on the character (more of that in a future post), and of course I animated him too. I am VERY pleased with how Jeff turned out, especially since this is only my second short I have ever done.

Here is an evolution of the character, from a first draft of the boards to visual development to final model and texture.