Some of you might have seen a bit of this around the intranets and maybe when you visited his site recently from my post on “Tips: Rigging for Animators”. But Andy Conroy has ventured on a great project with a new rig that he will be releasing soon to the public totally free! It’s called FishBoy. He has passed it out a bit for some beta testing and I have been lucky enough to have gotten to play around with it and I really think he has a great character and rig here.

Students and teachers alike should really look into it because I feel it takes the traditional flour sac one step further and puts a real character on it. It could really bridge the gap between students going right from a flour sac to a full-blown character. It has all the the great squash and stretch of the flour sac but with an easy to control facial rig on it. Andy has really chosen to limit the amount of controls being used and maximizing the amount of appeal that you can get with this character. Really great shapes all over the place and the rig is super easy to use.

Andy has already put a quick little motion test up on the blog…click here. Also he has done a little Rig Demo over on his Vimeo Page. The Rig will be getting released in the next couple of weeks and I am looking forward to seeing it out there when people get a hold of it and see the same appeal I am seeing! There is another important aspect to The FishBoy Project as well when you visit the site you’ll read all about it…and here’s a little bit from his post about it

” In a few short weeks Fish Boy will be released from this site as a free download and for those downloading this rig I ask that you consider giving to Fish Boy’s Kiva account. (What is Kiva? It’s an awesome non-profit with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. Read more about Kiva here.)

For some of us, working is about finding happiness and for some it’s just about feeding your family. If in a couple weeks you find yourself in the first catagory, consider helping out the second.

Love, Andy and Fish Boy”

So altogether it sounds like a great project and I’m excited for all of the possibilities. I will be sure to keep everyone posted on the release!

Enjoy!
JP