It's ALIVE (lil' George Orson)

Orson is well on his way to being a real boy, in spite of some considerable setbacks.
I won't bore you with every detail of my month-long series of unfortunate events (not the book, of course) – so a brief summary would go like this:
The second week of July, I sliced the index finger on my dominant hand at work and got four stitches.
This inhibited my puppet making for about a week and a half.
Then, when I was all healed, I had a silicone casting fiasco, followed by clean-up.
And finally, I've been battling some weird batches of foam latex that have caused me to recast Orson's body and head EIGHT TIMES now – due to an unknown contaminant in the gelling agent, the foam has come out the wrong density/consistency....
Till now --

BOOM!

It's worth mentioning that I never actually got the right consistency from the bottle, as it were.
What I ended up having to do was run the foam at a lower volume (whipped for less time than normal) in order to achieve proper density.
All this could've been avoided, I do believe, if the gelling agent I was supplied was properly formulated.
The company I purchase foam from shall remain unnamed, as I don't want to give them a bad wrap.
I called them a week ago and told the very polite - no sarcasm inferred - quality control guy about the problems I was having and after an hourlong conversation, neither he nor I could figure out what the issue could possibly be.
I explained my theory: that perhaps one of the components had been formulated wrong.
He said that sort of thing only happened once or twice in the past and he was "quite sure nothing was wrong" with this current batch.
I however, disagree. I've been buying from them for seven years and have never run into anything like this. Making puppets with their foam has always been easy, even a joy to work with -- but this last experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.
As of this week, I have yet to speak again with the representative and tell of my findings. Nor have I attempted to get a refund for either kit (the sum of both came to $102 approximately).
In all, I'm just glad to finally have a puppet! And in the future, I may switch to a different brand of latex... maybe.

ANYWAY, back to the good stuff.
Here's the hair getting glued to the head with Pros-Aide.

 Some pics of the moulding process -- the clay sculpt in the water-based clay bed.

The rarely seen burlap and Ultra Cal 30 build-up -- the first few layers are just runny plaster to capture all the detail in the sculpt. From there, I start to add more layers of plaster and burlap (soaked in plaster) for support. After about two layers of burlap strips, I go back to plaster only -- this being a mid-size mould, I'm working toward a thickness of about 3/4 of an inch. For smaller moulds, I've been able to get away with a 1/2 inch -- any thinner and you risk instability and cracking.

The finished mould halves. I let them dry out in the convection oven for a few hours at 150˚F. This way I can be sure the mould won't retain any excess moisture that could potentially ruin the foam.

The armature in the mould. Cored out with upholstery foam.

And now a quick look at the head. The mould is made the same as the last. But what's really cool about this is the facial armature that allows him to speak. This pic was taken about 3/4 of the way through, as some of the lip wires are still to be attached.
The head is mostly wire and epoxy putty, thus, to make him less top heavy, I built the head around a ping-pong ball.

That's all for now.
Barring any further difficulties, I should have some set-building pics for you before the month is out.

Welles Baby In Progress

Starting a new short and it's starring a baby Orson Welles!

Haven't quite worked out all the beats of the story -- as of now, all I know is that it'll be a commercial/out-take type deal, based on the classic "Yes Always" recording -- but I figure I'll have it set by the time I finish making the puppet. 

Sculpting the head (which is about 3 inches high) out of plasticine -- using my original sketch and some pics of both young and old Orson as reference.

I'll have more on the way soon -- Next: mold making, and casting, as well as a second puppet.

Quick Test

Been trying to keep my skills up as I move forward on some new projects (FINALLY!)
In this case, 3 hours of work gets you 16 seconds of rough animation.

The Present and Future

So,
I've been stuck in a creative mud hole, spinning my wheels for a good while now -- actually, it's been since New Years! -- and its driving me crazy.
Anyway, the cause of all this nonsense can be traced to one thing: moving forward.
Or, at least the attempt at doing so.
I've been desperately trying to get 2 new projects off the ground and as it turns out, the thing that's keeping them there is.... LIVE ACTION. Trying, and apparently failing at making a move from miniatures to real life -- I do love animation, but it seems to be bogging down my goals.
The problem is, getting all the proper materials, locations, and people together at once, is proving to be quite the challenge.
I never knew how hard it would actually be. Even something as simple as lighting the scene, is now five times more difficult than in animation.
I'm going to stop there, because, it's just going to turn into a rant. Suffice to say, I'm not being lazy, I'm working on something (many things) and it's going SO SLOW!
But, I'm saying all this, to let you know there will be some action, and soon. As I move forward into preproduction, I'll be sure to post plenty of pics and tests, and other bits of goodness --

I'm  in the middle of writing a new short story, which I'm debating if I will make it available here. On that note, I'm also considering putting up a sister site (or maybe a second-step-cousin-in-law site) where I would post short stories, illustrations, and other musings on a regular basis... this is just a possibility, but I'm hoping to come to some conclusions very soon.
Also, I've got a new feature script currently in competition over at Slamdance.

I'll find out where I stand after the judging period in September -- and the wait is KILLING ME!

So, in conclusion, I have some decisions to make. All of my future endeavors will cost me time & money and I'm giving my self the deadline -- by the end of summer, I have to make a move. I'm getting my new Show Reel ready, putting together a portfolio, and if all my attempts at indie production fail, I'm gonna start looking for work in LA.
Goin' out west... etc.
Hopefully, whatever I do, I can still keep things up to date here.

Random Test

Did this as an experiment to see how motion blur should be applied to movement.
I'll be making some new stuff soon, stuff that will involve more creature type animation to be integrated with live action. I will try to get better behind the scenes documentation on future projects -- that way there will be more to show, more often, and I won't end up going these LONG stretches of time without a post.

Shtubby No.5

It's been a long time, but I finally finished Shtubby No.5. 

It would've been here a lot sooner, but stop motion animation and working full time don't mix well.

All effects and editing were done in After Effects and almost every scene was green screen except the indoor 'light rays' scene, which was filmed practically on a set.
In order to achieve the "ultra slow" look, I had to shoot the animation at 30 frames per second, as opposed to the normal 24 fps. When viewed at captured speed, every shot looked terribly fast. But when slowed to half speed, things began to take shape. Even so, the slowed footage was still too fast, so I ended up applying a combination of "Timewarp" "Frame Blending" and "Time Remap" effects to get the final look.
The opening shot can be broken down like so: Shtubby was filmed on green screen. Then I did a live action dolly shot of my own bathroom (yes the bathroom is that fancy, at least in black and white, everything looks fancy in black and white).  I didn't have a proper dolly, so I improvised with some duct tape and a model car -- the ruler was used to gauge the distance the car needed to be moved. Of course, the raw footage was pretty jittery, so I stabilized it in post.

I then motion tracked the toilet and added Shtubby with a little color correction and live smoke.

The end titles were made with a practical effect, combined with some light compositing and tweaking in post -- I set the camera to shoot from above, focussed on a blank piece of white paper. I then wrote "Shtubby" with warm water. While the water was still wet, I dipped an ink soaked toothpick into the sides of the letters. The ink would quickly snake around, filling in the title.
I took the footage into AE and inverted the color. The title was then composited into the shot with a flourish of "Turbulent Displacement" some live action smoke and a fade in.

Photos

Just a quick look at some of the shots for an upcoming short.

Is it TOO obvious that I went to the Fincher school of cinematography? Probably, but I'm happy about it anyway!

FINCHER ROCKS!