New Website Header

I took a break from my personal project to make a new header for my main website, and wanted to share my process work with you.

First I thought of an idea. Then I realized the idea was WAY too long and complicated, so I came up with a different idea, and I made a series of thumbnails to visualize and plan the actions I wanted:

And then I made a rough layout of how big everything would be with the final 1050x350 size that the website allows.

Then using the layout, I modeled the letters in Maya, and imported my Lou the Janitor Character. I also almost went with a black letter on white background, but it didn't look the way I wanted it to when I lit it. The background was constantly getting over-exposed, while the character looked dull. I like the way the character pops against the black background.

And finally, I animated it, lit it, rendered it, added a subtitle in After Effects, and made it into a gif.