Gilly is a two-legged, six-eyed alien giraffe. He has the elegant walk of a ballerina, but the personality of a nine-year-old boy. I modeled and rigged Gilly for a 3D Collaborative student project. There were seven of us on the original team. Sandy Chiang came up with the fantastic, surreal story and character design.

Legs: FK/IK switch, foot control with roll, tilt, toe-lift, and knee-spin attributes.

Tail: FK chain

Neck: my own variation of Eric Miller’s Divine Spine.

Head: Jason Schliefer’s space-switching tool from Animation Friendly Rigging. Gilly’s legs and body need to dangle when he is thrown by the tree.

Face: Joint-based, so the skull breaks into many sculptural poses. Lips have blendshapes. Ears are an FK chain.

Eyestalks: Awesome Spine (an internet variation of the Divine Spine). The eyes move in an IK fashion, and the eyestalks stretch and twist in any direction.

Eyelids: Completely joint-based setup, following Kirian Richie’s Art of Rigging. The eyes can open to a 180-degree angle, or face backwards, and the eyelids bend expressivly, like eyebrows.