30 December 2011

I’M BACK and it’s time for updates!


Hey everyone I hope you all had a grate and relaxing Christmas. As you may have spotted I have been very busy with university work and sadly I had no time to update my blog with all the new photos and videos of what I have being doing. But now with Christmas over I can now get back in to the swing of things and get you all up to date on how everything has being doing.

So keep an eye out over the next 2 weeks for all my news and update on my university work, puppets, videos, oh yes and finally I will be revealing all-new news, photos and the final trailer for Viv & Mandy in the Big Clean Up part 2!

And as all ways your comments and feedback are always welcome.

16 December 2011

Set building the cobweb hotel

As part of my university set building brief I found out that the whole class will be working as one big group as we are remaking an out of copyright 2D cartoon the cobweb hotel as a Stop Motion animation. The first thing we did was to get given small separate task to do, 3 people of given the character sculpts  to design, 3 more people were given the 2 main sets to make, and the rest including myself were given the main props to make as very basic first draft models.

The point of doing this was so we could all come back and see what size and scale would look best for the animation.  When we got back and got to see the clay sculpts of the characters we decided that the size of the female fly would be the right scale to go with.
As the task I was given was to make the perfume bottle prop, we decided that all the people who were given the prop tasks would now focus on getting the main set finished and help by cutting out the wood grain effect in the foam board. This wood effect will go over the main body of the set that is an old wooden desk top set.  We spent around three weeks cutting out the wood effect. 
 As well as the desk top being the main set there is a smaller room set that was being made by one of my class mates Joel. When i was not helping out with cutting the foam wood grain i was helping out Joel with his set. I cut out the wooden support frame that the set was glued to so it won’t warp as much. I also helped out with the first cotes of paint, we gave them a basic cote of black followed by 3 layers of a dark brown. Once it had dried we spotted there was still parts of the foam board showing up, to get rid of these we watered down some brown paint so it was very thin and covered all 4 walls in it. This got rid of all the parts of the foam board showing and once it had dried Joel made the final touches of dry brushing some highlights onto the walls. 




 With the smaller set completed I started to help out more on the large desk top set. By the time i came to help the wood had being placed on the set and i helped on giving the set that first layer of brown paint in the same way as I did with the smaller set.

 To tell the truth this project has sadly got very under looked by most of the class as we have all being very busy working on other projects, as for me i got very over involve and spent too much of my time working on the puppets for the conflict of self project when i could of being working more on this project. This has being a big learning curve on how to time and plan a project,  knowing this i will be spending a lot more time on this project in the new year when it comes to making the puppets and animating on it.

25 November 2011

Canimation


Red Bull Canimation

Hey guys just a quick post to ask you all to watch these to brilliant animations done by my fellow animators for the Red Bull canimation competition. 

Cut Short by Drew Roper http://canimation.redbull.co.uk/gallery#32111930

No Bull by Gareth Hirst http://canimation.redbull.co.uk/gallery#32095013

Thanks guys and pass them around! 

13 November 2011

Conflict of self project part 2:

It’s time I updated you all on how my Conflict of self project for university is going, in my last post for this project I had made the final clay sculpts for good side and the bad side characters and coloured them on Photoshop.  
The next step for me was to put them in to some dramatic character poses. I took around 4 different poses of each character based on a series of life drawings I did.


 I then picked my favourite 2 poses of each sculpt and coloured them on Photoshop.


With the designs for the good and the bad guy finalised by my tutors, I started making the bad guy design into a puppet. I started on this puppet first as I knew it would take longer to make, as I would be making it using a technique I have not done before. This can be seen in this YouTube tutorial by the awesome and very talented Nick Hilligoss. 


I will be making this puppet using a ball and socket armature( that was very kindly given to me by Tom Brierton) covering it in foam, using spray glue so it won’t peel off, Then cutting down the foam with nail scissors to the size and shape I need.


Once I cut the foam down to the basic shape I needed, I then started building up the body mass, hands and muscles. To do this I used pieces of foam and Copydex glue, i used this as its latex based and I no it will not weaken or dissolve when Its painted over with the liquid latex.
 
 
I have being building up this puppet now for around 3 weeks and this is where I am currently up to.


As part of the rushes presentations at university we were asked to make an animatic of the short story line we had come up with, showing the two characters interacting with each other. As i don’t want to give away the whole story here is a small sample clip from my animatic. 




With all the extra foam getting added to the puppet i was concerned that it would restrict its movement when animating. To make sure it still had all its movement I did this quick animation test. 



I was happy with how the animation test came out and I have decided that i will do a second test once all the foam has been added to the puppet and not yet painted, keep an eye out for them and more making of images in my next conflict of self post.