My work:

I was part of the MPC character team for Disney's The Jungle Book.
My tasks mostly involved building facial topology, facial design tweak/changes and facial blendshapes for Bagheera, Sherekhan and Baloo. With facial blendshape work/tweaks also being done on some of the background characters.

 


Bagheera

For Bagheera, most of my time was focused on the head model, topology, and facial blendshapes.

Once the initial zbrush sculpt was completed by Rudy Massar; I was responsible for building the facial topology, which also included designing and building realistic ear and inner mouth geo. As well as ensuring everything from teeth, jaw and skull placement was working correctly.

As Bagheera was one of the first characters we completed, his design became an important step in getting the right balance between a stylised and a realistic animal. I was involved in the various face design tweaks that happened throughout that initial development. This involved tweaking and adjusting the model to various concepts and references until we had the right look.

Throughout Bagheeras intial development, it was important to have a facial rig setup so animation could begin testing. I was involved in building the facial blendshapes for this initial rig, which were later taken to final by Ben Jones.


Sherekhan

Sherekhan had a similar process to Bagheera, once the zbrush design sculpt was approved, I was responsible for building the facial topology, inner mouth/ears, and again ensuring all the teeth, jaw and skull placements were working as expected.

The design for Sherekhan was also fairly fluid once the modelling had begun, and I was involved in the various face and general head design changes that happened along the way, as we got new concepts and reference from the client.

Once the model was close to final, I worked on creating the facial blendshapes also.


Baloo

I was responsible for building the facial topology, minor tweaks and adjustments to the inner mouth and teeth/jaw placement and creating the facial blendshapes.

The design was completed by William Bell.

All Jungle Book images on this page are © Walt Disney Pictures.


 

All images and work © 2024 Jake Harrell unless stated otherwise