not like the others

I'm a little bit late but Happy Birthday, Miguel! 🎉🎉🎉

miguel was SUPER FUN i loved animating him!! i feel like a lot of 3D animation defaults to super skinny characters that are basically just tubes, so it's fun to work with a character that lets you design the shapes into something more graphic

we had to think a lot about how someone that big moved, but also how they carry themselves when just standing and talking. we referenced idris elba:

when a person has very well defined and built up chest muscles, their shoulders tend to be pulled forward. i did some posture tests early on to help out with finding a good slumped but still powerful, natural standing pose

a lot of tweaking had to be done too whenever he was doing any kind of dynamic action because of how defined his muscles are, extreme poses tended to get off model pretty quickly. here's an example with one of the shots that i animated, i tried to recreate what his model looked like without any shaping adjustments:

i wanna give a special shout out to eric de carolis, who animated a lot of fantastic miguel swagger, he really helped set the bar for how we should handle miguel's massive everything when walking. he animated this shot:

"Of course." Nodding curtly, he couldn't ask for better treatment, though what he had to share next ran the risk of altering gathered perceptions. "That is... your preference to decide. She's endured more horrors than any child her age should ever be exposed to." Uttered with complete sincerity, tone serious, a sombre expression slid smoothly onto his features as Miguel reflected on her circumstances. At least this way, with Singed's help, he'll find a way to remove the very quality that had seen his adopted daughter suffer cruelties most unfathomable; the lingering dregs of their humanity.