This last week has been about testing the puppets and getting a good feel for them, but not working them too hard incase they break before we even start filming the real thing!
Firstly here is my test of Jack the dog. Instead of a puppet, Jack is animated using a series of replacement figures. I sculpted them individually out of supersculpy (a clay you cook in the oven to harden) and it was tough to get them all to look the same.
Here is the test walk cycle I animated for Barney. Made by Tom, Barney is a foam latex puppet with a wire armature and a supersculpy head with changeable mouths to give him different expressions. His head isn't fully attatched yet so please excuse its shakeyness,
And last but by no means least, is the test walk cycle for the fox. This is animated by Jon, as he will be animating the fox in the film. This is a bit small, to view it on a larger screen you can find it on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8q04hikPtQ
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Barry Purves
As promised, more news on the projects Barry is working on with us.
The Young Persons Guide project is in full swing and starting to take shape, here is a basic animatic for you to have a look at. Each section is being animated by a different student and is meant to reflect a different part of the human body/mind represented by the instrument played in that section.
I have the Fuge, the finale of the piece and my plan is to project the other students work on to a live male model and then have a big reveal at the end where everyone involved in the film, including Barry will be there.
Barry is also working on another film outside of the university, all about the life and works of Tchaikovsky. He asked me to make him a paper cut out cycle of a swan flying slowly. Here is my test of the swans which I traced from a video I found on youtube, sort of rotoscoped you could say.
The Young Persons Guide project is in full swing and starting to take shape, here is a basic animatic for you to have a look at. Each section is being animated by a different student and is meant to reflect a different part of the human body/mind represented by the instrument played in that section.
I have the Fuge, the finale of the piece and my plan is to project the other students work on to a live male model and then have a big reveal at the end where everyone involved in the film, including Barry will be there.
Barry is also working on another film outside of the university, all about the life and works of Tchaikovsky. He asked me to make him a paper cut out cycle of a swan flying slowly. Here is my test of the swans which I traced from a video I found on youtube, sort of rotoscoped you could say.
Long Time No Post!
WOW!
I really didn't realise that it had been this long since I posted last! My apologies, let me give you a quick recap of the last 4 weeks,
I turned 22
Alex turned 22
Much puppet, set and prop making.
The major changes are with the sets. such as, the mud or mulchy woodland floor. I first built up a bit of a slope using pink insulation foam to help the set look less flat then I added the mud.
I got this effect by mixing hamster bedding sawdust stuff, PVA glue, paint, a splash of water and a sprinkle of paper leaves. The PVA glue will make it all set nice and stiff so it doesn't move around if it's touched. The path was done using sand instead of sawdust because Barney only ever walks on the path so the magnets need to be able to get through it.
I left some gaps to add in the trees which i will then cover over the bases with another thin layer of mud, this time of a different colour to get a nice effect.
Talking of trees, we have begun to add a few branches to them, and branches mean leaves!! luckily we found some nifty craft punches which did most of the work for us, except for the glueing on!! Quite a relaxing job in a mind numbing kind of way. We made the branches out of twisted florists wire, you know the stuff that has the paper over it, and then glued each leaf on one by one. There are still many branches to make.
As far as puppets go, paint seems to be the issue. Alex did a test on the not so great badger puppet with acrylic and an air brush, which looks really nice until you move the puppet and the paint cracks. Whereas Jon used latex paint which essentially gave the fox a thick orange skin that creased really badly when the puppet was posed. Jon is currently experimenting with recasting the fox with ink in the foam latex mixture, hopefully that will work. In the mean time, I told Alex to stick with the acrylic and any cracks can be editted out in post.
Tom has made an amazing start on Barney's front room especially as we have 2 lots of props to make for it. The before and after money furniture is looking great! Barney goes from having a manky bean bag to a lush leather sofa. It's all starting to come together now and it's all down to the fine details.
Barney himself is not looking too shabby either. Tom did a few test animations and he's looking good.
Right now I'm working on Jack the dog. Instead of a single puppet, he will be a series of replacements, and boy is it hard to get them all looking the same!
More news and picks as I get them folks so stay tuned!
I really didn't realise that it had been this long since I posted last! My apologies, let me give you a quick recap of the last 4 weeks,
I turned 22
Alex turned 22
Much puppet, set and prop making.
I got this effect by mixing hamster bedding sawdust stuff, PVA glue, paint, a splash of water and a sprinkle of paper leaves. The PVA glue will make it all set nice and stiff so it doesn't move around if it's touched. The path was done using sand instead of sawdust because Barney only ever walks on the path so the magnets need to be able to get through it.
I left some gaps to add in the trees which i will then cover over the bases with another thin layer of mud, this time of a different colour to get a nice effect.
Talking of trees, we have begun to add a few branches to them, and branches mean leaves!! luckily we found some nifty craft punches which did most of the work for us, except for the glueing on!! Quite a relaxing job in a mind numbing kind of way. We made the branches out of twisted florists wire, you know the stuff that has the paper over it, and then glued each leaf on one by one. There are still many branches to make.
Barney himself is not looking too shabby either. Tom did a few test animations and he's looking good.
Right now I'm working on Jack the dog. Instead of a single puppet, he will be a series of replacements, and boy is it hard to get them all looking the same!
More news and picks as I get them folks so stay tuned!
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Week Four and Five
Sorry for the lack of posting last week, but it's been all systems go!
Not just with this money tree project but with a very exciting project I have the privilidge to be working on. It's exciting because I get to work with the legend that is Barry Purves! More about that later ;)
Alex has been very busy with the foam latex Badger puppets, and here is a test animation he has done, as well as so before and after photos of the woodland trees.
ENJOY!
This is the Badgers mould and the armature inside, ready for the foam latex. Below is what the puppet looks like when you first take it out of the mould, a bit like a flying squirrel badger!
Here is Tom, to give you an idea of the scale we're working in. Before the paint, looking like greek collumns and after the paint, looking more tree like!
Not just with this money tree project but with a very exciting project I have the privilidge to be working on. It's exciting because I get to work with the legend that is Barry Purves! More about that later ;)
Alex has been very busy with the foam latex Badger puppets, and here is a test animation he has done, as well as so before and after photos of the woodland trees.
ENJOY!
This tree will be used as the Fox's fallen tree, log desk.
Tom and Jon's foam latex puppets came out wonderful too, minus a few air bubbles, I think they were both great successes. Tom also created a foam board mock up of Barney's front room for us to start visualising the space and scale of the set.
All in all a very productive week, stay tuned for a link to the Barry project animatic I've been working on.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Week Three
The mod roc forrest is becoming ever thicker, as we have made almost 20 trees!
Alex failed his first attempt of foam latex for the first badger, but will try again next week. Although it was tough finding an oven for us to cook it in in the first place! For some reason, the ceramics department at uni doesn't want are stuff in their kilns, even though they have like 25, and dont even use all of them! Luckily, the plastic workshop has an oven and the lovely Keith is letting us use it.
Hopefully it will all go to plan next week and we can start getting some paint on those trees!
Alex failed his first attempt of foam latex for the first badger, but will try again next week. Although it was tough finding an oven for us to cook it in in the first place! For some reason, the ceramics department at uni doesn't want are stuff in their kilns, even though they have like 25, and dont even use all of them! Luckily, the plastic workshop has an oven and the lovely Keith is letting us use it.
Hopefully it will all go to plan next week and we can start getting some paint on those trees!
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Animatic
This is our animatic. Gives you a basic idea of the plot and some camera angles etc.....
Hopefully Jack the dog will feature more towards the end as well.
Thanks again to our Storyboard artist Ade Tooth!
Please leave comments and tell me what you think!
Hopefully Jack the dog will feature more towards the end as well.
Thanks again to our Storyboard artist Ade Tooth!
Please leave comments and tell me what you think!
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Week Two
This week was all about sculpting and mould making.
Alex and Tom took their finished scuplts into the ceramics department to make moulds. These moulds will be used to make the foam latex puppets.
While they were doing that jon and I were building a mod rock forrest! right now the trees look a bit like greek coloumns because they haven't been painted yet. so far we have made 10 trees of varying sizes and widths, and we're hoping to have about 25 over all so we have a few more to go!
Also this week our 2nd years Chloe and Emma came in to plan out the backdrop for the forrest set.
But most importantly the lovely Adrian Tooth finished drawing the storyboard out for us. I will be turning this into an animatic to show you all next week, so watch this space!
In the mean time, you can check out Adrian's Cartoon and comic arts blog:
http://cartoonandcomicarts.blogspot.com/
Alex and Tom took their finished scuplts into the ceramics department to make moulds. These moulds will be used to make the foam latex puppets.
While they were doing that jon and I were building a mod rock forrest! right now the trees look a bit like greek coloumns because they haven't been painted yet. so far we have made 10 trees of varying sizes and widths, and we're hoping to have about 25 over all so we have a few more to go!
Also this week our 2nd years Chloe and Emma came in to plan out the backdrop for the forrest set.
But most importantly the lovely Adrian Tooth finished drawing the storyboard out for us. I will be turning this into an animatic to show you all next week, so watch this space!
In the mean time, you can check out Adrian's Cartoon and comic arts blog:
http://cartoonandcomicarts.blogspot.com/
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