"Pigeon Pal" is my capstone project created during my senior year at Eastern Michigan University. Based on concepts created prior to the start of my final semester, Pigeon Pal went through all the stages of an animation pipeline, with an emphasis on character animation. The entire short, from modeling and rigging the character to fully rendering the footage took roughly 15 weeks to complete.

​

The final version of Pigeon Pal's character concepts were created by fellow artist and brother Andrew Laitinen, though I did give direct input on the look of the character and oversaw his design. All other assets were created myself from scratch, including the character modeling, rigging, animation reference, audio work, and all post production. I also animated the short following the typical animation process of reference, blocking, splining, and finalizing the animation.

 

At the beginning of the semester, it was my responsibility to create a planned-out timeline, creating deadlines for every aspect of the animation. Over the course of this fifteen week project, I had numerous critiques from my professors and my fellow colleagues, in order to ensure I was meeting deadlines with as high a quality I could achieve. I often found myself a few days ahead of schedule, though I would always edit my work according to the critiques I was given.

​

"Pigeon Pal" has been an incredibly enjoyable and immensely enlightening experience. I have definitely improved in all aspects of the animation pipeline, pushing the limits of what I am capable of. Pigeon Pal the character proved to be my most finely crafted character rig to date, as I had taken my first steps towards a sophisticated facial rig. The animation itself was far more complex yet smooth compared to previous projects, and I learned much on ways to improve my animation techniques. After finishing "Pigeon Pal", I know I'll only get better from here.