Amazing Morph Update

On Wednesday 10th Dec I attended a talk at the Watershed in Bristol. It was a retrospect of the lipsync work made by Aardman 25 years ago. Weird because I'm 25 and it still looks as good today as it did back then, which is more than I can say about myself....
Anyway, I saw this as an opportunity to gift my knitted Morph to none other than Peter Lord himself, Co founder of Aardman Animations and creater Morph.
His reaction couldn't of been better, he even bought me a pint!
Peter shared a photo we had taken on twitter and a couple of pics of Morph and my work has been getting some major exposure from it, which is awesome. I am very greatful.
The night itself was a wonderful event and I got to catch up with my mentor Barry Purves which was lovely and I also made some new friends. I had seen all the films before on my Aardman classic DVD (which I originally had on VHS) but it was great to see them on the big screen.

Lendwithcare Christmas Animation 2014

Here is an advert for a really good cause.
I helped this project by customizing the little people.
I have worked with these puppets and Woodsfilm before you may recall on the vocality projects.
So they all looked basically identical when I received them and using milliput set about giving them all individual features, eg hair and bare feet.
I also created all of their costumes.
Check out the website to help the cause : http://www.lendwithcare.org/

Barry Monkey and Rumpus Animation

For my next knitted project I was inspired by Rumpus Animation's mascot Barry Monkey. A cheeky blue and purple chappy with a long curly tail.

I found a book of knitting patterns for nursery rhymes and in it was a domed shape pattern for a haystack. Using that as a base for Barry's body shape, I started knitting accordingly. And Barry kept growing. I didn't realize quite how big it was going to turn out.

My technique for knitting 3D characters is to break the character down into shapes. Thinking in terms of flat panels for front and back, or one big shape that can wrap around, like a net for a geometric shape.

I think I got the blue the right colour but maybe should of used a lighter pink for his face. But all in all I am happy with the likeness. I used card covered in felt to make the hat and felt again for his waistcoat and face details.

To make his tail I stitched wire into it whilst sewing it up. I coiled it up inside the body to hold it in place and hopefully stop the wire from slipping out.

My favourite part of this project was taking Barry to his new home. I hand delivered him to the wonderful people at Rumpus. They were all so complimentary and gave me some really good feedback on my work. I know Barry will be well looked after.