Stop-Mo

my attemts at lip-sync were hindered by hot lights and melting plastercine which became very shiny. my original plan was to replace pre made mouth parts as different sounds are created, this was impossible due to the sticky plastercine losing its original shape. the results are very rough , next step is to recreate the whole face and seperate jaw using fimo. plastercine can be used to smooth out the join but thats all. Moving the armature itself was a bit better but I still need lots of practice before anything descent will happen.

the start of everything

Summer 08

This Summer I had an opportunity to produce some story-boards for a short educational animation on how Tin is formed. Starting with the Big bang and including proto-planetary solar systems, the Earth cooling and continents colliding. The trick, I found was to create a flow to the direction moving from one point to the other as the narration dictates. Once this was done colour keys and a bit of concept work was required for the clock. These will hopefully act as a guide and give an idea as to what it all should look like, drawing squiggely lines for the storyboard is fine, but more info is required for a decent animatic.

Final thoughts

Initial Ideas and the Conceptual stage of this project I enjoyed but when It came to animating other peoples concepts it became hard work, I had really thought Id be able to get to grips with this but it wasnt the case, Im aware now that I only really like working on my own ideas, This does'nt bode well for employment in the industry (unless its preproduction) and worried me slightly but to be honest It helps me understand how I can direct my porfolio to suit a certain area of expertise. Above is an idea based on the tshirt design logo but I got the impression the client thought it was a bit off! no pleasing some people, Panda with a hard on though? fine.

This is a design for the main character in a story based on Lewis Carols "Jabberwocky" I'm thinking Maya or stop mo, going into shadow puppet style, The basic story boards are in development, as well as concept backdrops. this is more long term while the Helvis project is also developing, ill post the character design and some enviroment concepts, cathy suggested more work on lighting to create dramatic effect, so ill have that in mind for the next series of concepts based on a paradise island in hell. Helo Heloha!

The Basic armature you see here is a toy with plastic ball joints, cheap and light but limited in movement somewhat.
I stuck foam "muscles" to the basic skeleton to flesh it out and even added some plastercine in places. extra foam is cut away with scissors. I was inspired by Ray Harryhausen's book on stop motion which details how various puppets are made, I thought this way was best as I dont have the latex or plaster mould and sculpting equipment yet and this way is less messy. Hands are plastercine over a wire armature but when cold plastercine tends to crack so I may have to rethink this. another problem that might arise is the hooves that are made from fimo with small magnets embedded in them, these may not be strong enough for the figure to stand so hole's may have to be drilled for tie downs.
Finally the costume, the 70's Jumpsuit is white and gold and covered in gems and decoration featuring eagles and the like, will include a few skulls and a dragon, the white should work nicely with the reds and yellows of the backgrounds, ill try and post some background concepts soon.

Animating the Ants

This seemed simple enough yet for some reason it became a chore. A bit like painting by numbers. I had forgotten the process of working in Flash and my mind kept wandering from the task. because the different animated elements are stored seperatly it proved difficult to get a good performance.The end result is a bit wooden but after slogging through lip sync I developed another character for the second voice and limited movement to head nodding and hand wagging as well as a salute every now and then. Elements began to float and I got frustrated and never got to grips with the project as a whole. Not sure why this happend as other flash projects seemed to go alright. Now slightly deflated and releaved its done and hoping foley will be more fun.