Here's th' video ya' ordered!

Here's the eye replacement test I was talking about. Note: in the final version of the film, his eyes will be blue.

Snippets -o- stuff

I know it's been awhile since my last post, but things have been really CRAZY lately. I've got so many ideas and projects going at once that it's amazing I'm even able to function. And yet, things have been moving at a snail's pace. I know, impossible, right? Still, I decided that even though I don't have enough big news to make a whole post, I still have a bunch of little snippets that would be worth mentioning.

THE MUSIC VIDEO

I still haven't gotten to animate on it yet. This is mostly because I recently bought After Effects CS4 and have been experimenting with it so that I can take full advantage of its powers later on. I did a couple eye replacement tests with the software, you know, real human eyes composited on to a stop-mo puppet. It worked out really well, but I haven't put it on youtube yet. But I will . . . soon. Otherwise, I'm very close to animating. I can feel it.

THE STOP MOTION MAG FESTIVAL

You may remember this from the last post, but you probably don't remember this guy. (if you do, then you obviously pay too much attention to me.)

Yes sir, this is the old Tree Man. And I'm going to use him for the festival. The film will be titled Autumn Leaves, and I will be using the graveyard set from the music video for this short as well. That said, I now have a deadline for the music video; MAY. Because the deadline for the festival is JUNE, and that gives me a whole month to animate the Tree Man. Even so, I'd better get scooting.

STOPMOTIONANIMATION.COM'S 10 SEC. SPOT

I recently learned of this from StopMotionAnimation.com. Anthony Scott, one of the coolest kats in the animation industry, has presented the invitation to all of us at the site, to make a 10 second stop motion spot advertising the forum. I already know what I'm going to do, but I don't know when I can get to it.

CHIMPY'S BROKEN!

And Chimpy broke.

So, as you can see, I've got my hands full for awhile. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can work professionally and let my mind relax.

Animation Contest!

Stop-motion Magazine has posted their animation contest for August 2010.

Click on the image to check it out.

I might enter something myself, if I feel I've got the time.

Meet the Skull Bunny

Between the music video and my graphic novel, I had a little down time and decided that it would be cool to make a puppet based on this doodle that always seems to find its way onto my paper.

I made the armature out of a couple Helping Hand rigs, epoxy putty, some armature wire for the arms and a piece of K&S tubing for the neck. I decided that I didn't want to waste time and material, so I went with the build-up method instead of foam latex. (see second image)

The head was made out of Sculpey.

And the ears were made out of wire dipped in liquid latex, then flocked to give a furry look.

I finished it off with a bit of burlap that my uncle (yes the same uncle who found the camera rig) generously donated. He was the only one I knew who had burlap. It seems no one sells it any more.

Maybe you'll see this little guy soon. That is, if I have the time to animate him. Mind you, I made this puppet in three days.

Old Man Puppet Ready for Shoot

We finished painting both Old Men puppets and I'm pretty happy with the way they came out. The hands molded relatively poorly though.(which is bad because we have multiple close ups of them)

Here is the original sketch of the Old Man compared to how he came out.

Here's the Old Man and the Angel statue.

I painted the body and my dad painted the face and hands. We used equal parts acrylic paint and liquid latex. I then powdered the puppets to cut down on tackiness of the latex. In the days to come, we'll begin constructing the sets and I will hopefully get to start animating by the first week of January.

Music video update

So we've been really busy casting puppets and doing some animation tests. I uploaded a video of the tests in question, just so you could see how things have been coming along. The first clip is of the stripped down armature in a walk cycle. The next one is a flight test with the crow puppet (which we made out of foam latex and wire).

We made duplicates of the old man puppet, one with a wire armature and one with a Skeletoon ball and socket armature. The one with the wire is for close-ups (mostly because it came out better than the other).

In all, I think we've made about six models. This is one big project!

New music video in progress

So, my father has a friend who lives in California. And about 4 months ago, he got hired to make a half dozen or more music videos for a certain artist. At that time, I had just finished one of my shorts and sent him the link. He replied, and asked if I would be willing to do one of the videos in stop-motion. Of course, how could I turndown an offer like that?

So, ever since August, I've been working on puppets and props and whatnot. Along the way, I've managed to get a few pictures of the process.

This is Old Man, the main character of the music video. He and all the other puppets are cast in Monster Makers foam latex (animatronic grade).

Here are two of the four crow puppets. There are three small ones (like these) and a big one for close-ups.

This is the mold for Old Man. It's the biggest mold I've ever made. And laying inside it is the Skeletoon armature.

This is the stone Angel. Her purpose is classified.

The whole thing is gonna be about three minutes long and so far, has taken close to four months to get things started. I recently acquired a Canon Powershot G10 camera for shooting in HD and my uncle and I fabricated a camera rig for pans.

We made the head out of wood, all-thread, and aluminum pipe. And my uncle salvaged an old enlarger from the local high school which we used to mount the head.