Rigging with Michael Davies Returns 11-14 Jan

Michael Davies teaches at Escape Studios

3D artist and undergraduate program leader Michael Davies will return on 11 January to teach our second year animation students a master class in "Character Rigging for Animators". 

For three days Michael will take our 2nd year animation students through the fundamentals of rigging their own characters.

The class is part of Module CR5001, a specialism module in which students begin to focus on a chosen specialism of their choice.

Learn from the man who rigged Smaug

Rigging with Michael Davies
Our students will learn the fundamentals of rigging in Autodesk Maya and what character riggers do in the animation and VFX industry.

The Art of Rigging
This class is about how characters and creatures get put together.  Rigging is the art and craft of taking a 3D model and making a skeleton structure that makes it function, so that animators can breathe life into it and create a performance.

About Michael Davies
Michael Davies is our undergraduate program leader with a long industry track record. His main areas of expertise are rigging and modelling, but he has also worked as a 3D generalist and supervisor.  He is also an Accredited Trainer for Maya at Autodesk.  Michael has worked on many VFX blockbusters such as Batman vs Superman, Doctor Strange and Thor Ragnarok.  He also rigged Smaug (The Hobbit) and The Minions for Illumination-McGuff.

Autodesk Maya is our key software, and the industry leader

Where and When
Due to Lockdown 3.0, Michael's class will be held online at Blackboard. Details at Blackboard, login as usual on Monday morning at 9.30am.  
   
What's inside the class

• Learn how to rig characters for animation
• understand automated rigging systems

About Michael Davies
To see an interview with Michael Davies, and find out more about his work, follow this link. 

Vimeo Tutorials
We also have an extensive series of videos, recorded by Michael, on how to rig animated characters, at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel. To find the videos (they are password-protected, but available to all our students and Escapees) follow the links below.

Character Rigging

Character Rigging
Introduction to Character Rigging with Michael Davies
https://vimeo.com/album/5399149
Also see this blog post on character rigging

Advanced Character Rigging 
Advanced Character Rigging with Michael Davies
https://vimeo.com/showcase/6347017
Also see this blog post on advanced character rigging 

Facial Rigging 
Facial rigging with Michael Davies (2 1/2 hours)
https://vimeo.com/showcase/6540297
Also see this blog post on facial and character rigging 

Rigging Assets
Rigging assets for Michael's tutorials can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IIPlrfnjY-UBnSG80SUKla0_jEXnR3qP


The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2021, follow this link.  To apply, visit the offical page here.