Grace Projects

Alligator Capone

My capstone project for my Bachelor’s degree was creating an animation-ready rig of a six-armed alligator model.

During the initial planning, I drew over screenshots of the model to work out which controls I needed and where the joints would go.

Draw-over of Alligator Capone’s face with cyan and green marks planning controls and joints. — Planning the facial controls and joints.

Side view of Alligator Capone’s foot with drawn joint and control positions over the model’s wireframe. — Planning the foot’s joints and controls.

Notes from critiques with my advising professor helped guide the joint placement. I later adjusted the joints to follow those notes.

Side view of Alligator Capone’s wireframe head with annotations marking planned changes to the upper jaw, head, and neck joints. — Joint adjustments planned from critiques with my advising professor.

While creating the rig, I added controls and quality-of-life improvements to make it easier for animators to use. The number and density of controls meant I needed to keep the control count low while still giving animators a full range of motion. I also gave them the option to hide controls when they weren’t being used.