Difficult to rig animation

Artistic Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi everyone! I’ve got a quite specific problem and I am hoping some of you can help point me in the right direction.

I want to animate a character cartoonishly eating himself, starting from his lower jaw and working inwards. Eventually folding in on himself and disappearing. I’ve attached a video of the kind of effect I’m aiming for (especially the way the orange one begins to fold in slowly)

Does anyone know the best way to achieve this look in Blender? I’ve been experimenting with bones but so far been unable to get the desired folding and creasing effect.

Thank you in advance, I hope I’ve asked this question in the correct part of the forum.

2

What you want isn’t bones it’s shape keys

3

Thanks Horus, do you know of any good tutorial videos or examples of shape keys being used in a similar way?

Also, should I make one big shape key of a few smaller ones used one after another?

4

For such a complex animation, you’ll want several shape keys. Each one defines a deformation that the mesh will mutate into. There are a lot of videos and it’s a well covered topic, but I haven’t watched any.

5

Excellent, cheers for the help. I’ll look up some vids now, I’m doing some tests now and I think I can make it work