Here is my entry for this month’s AnimChallenge run by the Agora Community. The theme for September 2023 is ‘Talent Show’. I had a lot of fun making this- a lot of the time was spent questioning my sanity, but I enjoyed it all the same.
This is the cycle I made for the start of the animation- i wanted plenty of secondary anim on the boas and balloons so that it all looked a bit crazy and haphazard. I wanted it to give the impression that this guy is completely deluded about how his invention looks- that it maybe isn’t as graceful and elegant as he thinks, but I also wanted it to still feel quite creative and inventive, if perhaps a bit amateurish.
Some stills:
I made the balloon burst with a series of modelled shapes and animated their visibility.
Rig Demo: This was a very complex rig (for me) made with Auto Rig Pro and the Wiggle Bones addon. I had a lot of problem solving to do in terms of figuring out how the different parts of the character worked together- I was essentially rigging a rig 
A LOT of Wiggle bones added that extra layer of realism to the secondary anim.
To save time on the character model, I repurposed the Ortiz rig from Mixamo. I applied new procedural textures and re-sculpted him to make him less muscley. I also moved his arms down to more of an A Pose as I knew his bulk could be an issue during deformation. I decided that as the anim didn’t require him to raise his arms, that A pose was more beneficial than T Pose. I also stripped out the mixamo skeleton and started fresh with Auto Rig Pro.
We need a golden buzzer one too, but please don’t kill the guy 
