Journey of the Fairyfly

The first fairyfly was intended to be more of a simple design to test ideas, as well as part of a 3D Animatic.
The tests, which were mostly with lighting and glow, were to find the best glow result for the final form.
The following images show progression of the Fairyfly.

The above showed a progression, but I also used the basic form for the playblasts.
As I began to develop the first scene, I used the first fairyfly as a light interaction with the environment.

The glow really had the effect I wanted - it cast it's light onto surfaces, such as the water.
At this point, I had already designed the final fairfly, and it was all rigged and ready to go. The final design followed my initial concepts of my fairyfly art:

As the concept shows, the wings seem to have outlines that don't quite connect. This was intentional, as the wings are somewhat like tendrils.
The fairyfly for the animation, likewise, will have these tendrils, which will move somewhat like wings, yet at the same time seem to have their own way of moving.

The complete Fairyfly rig

The final Fairyfly used spline IKs for it's tendrils, and each tendril (eight in total), had three controllers. Those controllers themselves are parented to a wing master controller, so that the "wings" can be made to move in totality from a single controller, rather than manipulating six per "wing". I guessed this would save a potential mess while animating in the future, if I so decided I wanted some tendrils to move independent of their overruling controllers.

The following pictures show the glow of the Fairyfly, then followed by rendered out animation experiments, in order to get the basic movement of these little guys down.

This shows the glow turned on with the geometry still visible.

By turning the glow source off from being visible, it gave the more ghostly imagery I was after.

I doubled the glow, however I felt the first setting for the glow intensity was better.

I then animated the Fairyfly. First, we have a playblast.

Then, a higher quality render.

The playblast

The first test render

I decided the movement of the wings needed work. Experimentation ensues, as of this moment I am currently waiting for the second test render to see if the alterations look better than the first.

The second playblast

The second test render

At this point, it looks more like an eerie supernatural light... however it depends on the angle in which the fairyfly is viewed. I put this down to the fact that the main body's glow outshines the tendrils, which is quite understandable.
So this is the journey of the fairyfly, up to this point.
The basic animation will be used in each scene, where I can adjust the movement of the "wings" according to whether or not the fairyfly is climbing or descending.
And that is the end of my blog for today.

...hmm. This blog was actually quite serious... no shenanigans at all...
Must be tired.