Project 1 - Spiderman Poses

Pose 1

The image above shows the spiderman pose I was tasked to follow. The screenshots below show the results of this pose that I have created using Maya.

The screenshot above shows my spiderman hanging upside down. His hands are actually grabbing an imaginary rope from above, allowing him to hang himself upside down steadily.

From the original spiderman position, i started out by rotating spiderman upside down.

For spiderman's posture, to make him look balanced, i had to ensure that his back is slightly bent. To be able to do this, i made use of all three spine controls and rotated them accordingly to make his body curve proportionately. Next, I adjusted spiderman's thighs, legs and feet using forward kinematics. It was slightly tricky for me in this area as I was very confused with which joint i had to rotate in order to achieve a certain angle. I played around and managed to get the best result as shown above by rotating spiderman's hips, thighs and legs using the forward kinematics control. As for this feet, i simply rotated them upwards so that they look pointed. To straighten spiderman's arms and allow it to grab the imaginary rope, just like the original image, was the toughest part for me. I used inverse kinematics and rotated spiderman's arms around. I was restricted to only rotating/moving his wrists, elbows and and upper arm around so i faced quite a bit of difficulty in this area. To be able to grasp the rope, the spiderman's fingers are wrapped around the rope, where his four fingers on both hands are curled inwards in the same directions respectively, and his thumbs over his fingers. I simply adjusted the finger's positions by selecting and changing their values.

Pose 2

This pose above was found on http://marvel-movies.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spiderman_leap-up.png. Spiderman looks like he just jumped off an edge and is "flying" forwards for something.

For this pose, the legs were similar to that of pose 1's leg position. Similarly, I made use of forward kinematics and rotated the thighs, legs and feet. I found out that to make spiderman look more like he is about to jump onto something/someone is to adjust his posture and make his upper back bend forward more. To achieve that, i rotated the back spine controls. The trick is also to rotate his shoulders and bring them backwards while his elbows are lifted about just as high as his shoulders. I had a hard time bringing spiderman's elbows up to the height of his shoulders because I was quite lost and i did not know which part of the arm to handle in order to bring his whole arm up. After approximately 20-30 minutes of trying and getting odd looking arms, i managed to get my final results by rotating spiderman's shoulders and elbows backwards and doing so carefully step by step. To make it more realistic, i rotated his wrists as well. In this pose, spiderman's fingers remain clenched and i did not face any problem with that.

Pose 3

The image above was found on http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tvmPtJBXCIc/TrTd2lfbGaI/AAAAAAAAAJA/mFU9VXZLag0

/s320/spiderman.jpg.

As we all can see, spiderman is bent forward on both limbs, with an arm swung backwards with his fingers spread out evenly, indicating that he is ready to pounce on something/someone.

I rotated spiderman's left shoulder and his upper arm, followed by his wrist to make spiderman's left arm swing backwards. It was rather tricky because i had to rotated slowly and carefully because if i were to rotate to the back a little too much, his left arm would look unusual and dislocated and that is not what i want. For his fingers, i adjusted every single finger and gave them a wider spread and bent every finger to make them look more curved. For the legs, i rotated spiderman's hips and adjusted them slightly higher and made his back bend more. This will allow his shoulders to come forwards and downwards, enabling this right hands to easily touch the ground. As for his foot, his left ankle was rotated downwards to make it look like it is flat on the ground. As for his right foot, i made his toes point towards the ground, making him look like he is balancing himself with his left feet. 

Pose 4

I came up with a fourth pose because I played around with pose 3 after achieving my result. I thought spiderman look really cool posing like this thus i couldn't not resist posting this pose up :) 

As you can see from the screenshot above, i had curled his fingers and made them look like spiderman is ready to shoot his web but he is just chilling and waiting for his prey to appear in sight. 

After having completed project 1, i have learnt how i can make use of inverse kinematics and forward kinematics to create 3 dimensional character poses. I have tried my best to model all the poses as shown above. Overall, i had fun with these spiderman poses and i felt it got smoother and i got the hang of it as i played around with the rotations and adjustments. I have had an enjoyable time modeling these poses and i certainly hope to be able to learn more and create even more complex poses.