Rethinking my idea - again!

After seeking some guidance I've been told that if I was to make an animation on it's own that I may struggle with it. I was also told that modelling a character suitable for animation, rigging said model and then animating some demonstrations of the character's movement capabilities. I may have the time to also create a short animation for the character. It's believed to be well into my capabilities that this is possible and I'm eager to do it.

I plan on using 3DS Max for the whole project as when I was looking for jobs in character rigging quite a few such as the following require experience in 3DS Max:

http://jobs.gamasutra.com/job/3d-character-rigger-el-segundo-california-28545

http://www.totaljobs.com/JobSearch/JobDetails.aspx?JobId=63980495

The second job requires experience in turning 2D characters into 3D, which I feel is a necessary component in any model creation process. I recently blogged about a creating a reference for modelling. I drew out the front, side and top views of a goblin which I would then use to model. So I'm most likely going to either create my own, use a free to use image online or to take a free to use image and edit it to my liking.

The image I created in the recent blog post wasn't particularly great quality-wise so I'll most likely spend a lot more time on it that I did, which was only two afternoons. I think I should spend two weeks on this, the first week I should spend coming up with character designs or creating a collection online and then the second week creating a reference suitable for modelling. I'm leaning towards a superhero type theme as most of their costumes are simple in design such as the Flash's costume as shown in the image below.

I'll most likely be spending around 2 weeks over the entire project researching if I struggle with anything. Since I have next to no experience in modelling a character I'll be expected to take quite a long time on this. Along with texturing the character I expect I think I'll take up to 4 weeks. Jose Lazaro, a professional character artist, was asked how long he usually takes to create a 3D model and he said 

"Well, that depends on the character as well, but I usually spend between one and three weeks for character." 

As I'm fairly new to character modeling I expect to take longer that him.

I also looked at a forum and found this post:

http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3994

This post has an estimate of how long it takes to create professional assets for a game called "Blood Frontier" The times don't appear to be all that long but I have to take into account that these are created by professionals who have a lot of experience in character creation.

Also the character models most likely don't have rigged fingers and of top of that they are made from a low poly count.

Modelling and "Painting" a character apparently takes from 30-50 hours but taking into account my model will be smoother and of a higher quality on top of the fact that I have next to no experience in creating and texturing a model I think I could end up taking up to 3 weeks just modelling the character, leaving time for fixing any errors I may come across.

As for rigging the character I expect to spend around 3 weeks on this but it may take longer as I may have to edit the model to make sure the limbs bend properly as well as the face may take me a while so I may have to add on around 2 weeks for breathing room bringing it up to a total of 5 weeks for rigging. The models rigged by professionals apparently take 4-8 hours to rig but since I'm adding fingers and facial rigs I will need more time especially if I encounter any problems with the model. As for animating I plan to make some demonstration animations to show what the model can do as well as spend some time creating a short animation in any extra time I have to further demonstrate the quality of the created character. Apparently short character animations take from 1-2 hours but I should be able to manage two a week, making sure they're of a decent quality as well as leaving time to fix errors in the model/rigging I notice any problems. The short animation will most likely be the character interacting with some objects. As for the demonstration animations I think I'll be able to create two per week for 2 weeks creating 4 demonstration animations they'll be walking, running as well as a possibly punching, jumping or just an idle animation of the character standing around most likely looking rather bored.

The short animation's duration will be planned out once the character has been created, rigged and the demonstration animations have been completed. While this short animation is an optional part, if I have the spare time I will be working on this to further demonstrate the capabilities of the rigged character.

Rendering the animation as a image sequence rather than a video will save me a lot of time as I can use video editing software to create a video out of the images which I learned from the following of forum post post by "clockwork":

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-33891.html

As for what I want to be marked on, I want to be marked on the quality of the model, the rigging as well as the quality of the demonstration animations.

Image bibliography

http://batmanytb.com/Flash%20II%20(Young%20Justice)

http://www.g4g.it/download/comment.php?dlid=1865

Interview quote taken from: 

http://www.tutorialboard.net/interview-3d-character-artist-blitz-game-studios-jose-lazaro/