Bust Model

So, I finsished the mermaid rig and it all worked, but I came back to it and the IK stretch is causing a lot of problems. It's the same problem I had with Johnny, but I foun a solution, but that solution isn't working for this one. The stretch still works if it's being rendered out, but it's just really annoying and frustraing. I got to spend some more time with it.
In the meantime, I've been working on some action shots. I just finished working on a football(soccer) kick and currently working on a volleyball spike, then will work on a snowboarding shot.
I've also continued working on the Buts. I finished the model and the column it sits on. Now comes the rigging part. I'm not sure if I want to make it mostly blenshapes, or go for a curve and joint based rig.

Mermaid Rig

I finished the rig for the mermaid. Surprisingly, the arms were the hardest part of this whole rig. She has an IK and FK system, as well as a stretch system attached both of them. I am hoping I can use this as well as my Johhny rig for my second demo reel for Rigging. Then I can have two dedicated demo reels, one for animation and one for rigging.
I figured out the tail problems. It turns out, the regular IK spline works just fine, even better than the flexi or ribbon spline. The facial rig, is a combination of a curve and joint based system. Facial animatins will all be by hand.

The Adventures of Johnny the Ferret and Mermaid Model

Here is the final piece of my short film.

School is now officially over and now ready to start looking for jobs.

Besides applying for jobs, I'm currently working on a character, a mermaid. At the moment she doesn't have a name, but I envisioned her being a volumptuous and cut mermaid, but looking innocent at the same time. I'm not sure if I got innocent down, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Below is the concept art and the model. I noticed very quickly I needed to be careful with the color scheme, to avoid looking like another famous mermaid. Through the process I was wondering what I should use for her covering. I didn't want to use shells or star fishes, that's been done to death. My other option was to use octopuses, which I liked
The story I had her in was like this: a prohibition hits, an alcohol like drink is now illegal. Our protagonist (which isn't her), goes out looking, desperate to find some. He runs into this mermaid, who has the drink, instead of the protagonist focusing on her, all he sees the the drink she has. She tells him that some drinks are in a dark cave. He ventures into the ruinso of Atlantis, where he then finds lots drinks, but also finds a sea monster (which I'm currently working on). Then there's a chase... that's all I have right now, the story is in the early stages of development.

I have begun rigging her, which i have ran into a lot of problems, mostly with the tail, which I thought would have been the easieast. I've tried using different techniques, including flexi planes and ribbon splines, but I haven't tried the IK spline yet. Apart from the tail, everything else is coming along. This character I gave an FK and IK arms, that also stretch. The face is going to be either curve based joints or just regular joints, not using blendshapes on this head.
 I decided to make a mermaid character, because I was interested in animating a character moving in the water.