Evaluation

For this project I had to demonstrate the craft of stop motion, through a series of demonstrations and exercises designed to build upon my current understanding of animation. I was introduced into the technical and creative process of the stop motion filming with the guidance of industry professionals.

I’m actually very happy with how the stop motion turned out, the second time. Our first attempt turned out being incredibly fast, I noticed afterwards that I had missed out of steps in my walk cycle which made it look messy in the final animation. But in the retake both of out movements were smooth, both of our double takes can be seen clearly. And our positioning is better, our puppets are more central and less to the sides. Overall it turned out well. I was impressed with how the puppet turned out, I realised from the start it was going to be hard since she's mostly skin and hair which would be difficult to animate if not done right. But the fact that foam was cut into and shaped and painted created the malnourished look that I was going for.

I would however change the visibility of the syringes, as it's not completely clear what we're doing. I would bring them closer to the camera, I think we could have planned out our scene better. I felt like it was a lot of on the spot thinking, which with stop motion is a bad thing to do.

Our Second Attempt

Me and Alice decided we wanted to try and film our scene again, but this time I wouldn't miss out any steps to make it jump. And we would have dragonframe on the right settings so that it didn't come out at high speed. And I'm really happy with how it turned out. Both of out movements are smooth, both of our double takes can be seen clearly. And our positioning is better, our puppets are more central and less to the sides. Overall it turned out well. The only thing I would change if I could do it again, would be the visibility of the syringes, as it's not completely clear what we're doing.

Beauty Shots

Here are some high quality pictures of my finished model after filming for the second time, I was impressed that even after the amount of pins I poked in it and the amount I used it that it was still fully functional at the end of it. I was incredibly impressed with how the puppet turned out, I realised from the start it was going to be hard since she's mostly skin and hair which would be difficult to animate if not done right. But the fact that foam was cut into and shaped and painted created the malnourished look that I was going for.

Filming - First Attempt

Here is mine and Alice's first attempt, I say first attempt because this time around it didn't turn out the way we thought it would. We didn't have dragonframe on the right settings, and I missed out a few major stages in my puppets walk which made her very jerky. Too jerky for it to be good to look at. So we felt like it had to be done again.

As you can see the speed of the video is incredibly fast, we feel like this is because we didn't have the frames set to 'two's', and you can also notice the was my puppet jerks about.

Story Board

We thought it was best to create some form of storyboard for our short film, so that is what I did. It shows a very rough drawing of the interaction between our characters. And how long we want each scene to be.
It shows my character walking towards the middle of the scene, to then take a double take at Alice's puppet on the floor, my puppet heads over and notices he's injecting himself. So she take the needle and sits on the floor ready to use, while she does this Alice's puppet notices this happening so she stands up and walks away. Each scene lasting 2 seconds.

Painting and Clothing

I worked on creating the skin I had put together on photoshop, it was never going to look the same. I always figured it would look different, due to there being many factors of what could go wrong. Most of her was painted with the peach colour, but I added black in the parts on shadow and white were the lighter parts would be. I also decided to paint pupils on her eyes, where I was going to before. I did this because her eyes felt too alien like. 

The underwear turned out to look a lot bigger than what I wanted, but it was just because the hips on my puppet turned out to be bigger than I intended. Not that it looks bad because of this, Both the ribbon and felt came out looking really nice together. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Arts and Crafts

I made more detail for my puppet by adding a spin and smoothing her out. I ventured out to a arts and crafts shop and picked up some bits and peices consisting of:

Paint:

• Dark Blue
• White
• Peach
• Black

So I'm able to create her skin colour 

Fabric:

• Patterned ribbon
• Felt (both a turquoise colour)

To maker her underwear, I would use the ribbon to make the straps and decoration on the underwear

Colour Theory

Before taking the risk of painting my puppet, I decided to take photos of it. And paint different colours on to it using photoshop. I also painted on her where underwear would be placed, I did this because I plan on making her underwear out of fabrics. But I wanted to make sure the underwear colour would go well with the skin colour.

On this attempt, I wanted to keep most of the blue colour on her skin already, but brighten it up with pale whites and peaches just for highlights. 

 In this example I used dark blue for the shadows on her body, with white to show the lighter parts of the body.

I toned down the blue in this example, I felt like I could use more of it because it wasn't too overpowering on her body. Also I used white for the lighter parts, by far this is my favourite, it's subtle but still uses the colours I want.

Laika - Box Trolls

I watched Box Trolls not long ago, and the colours in the puppets really stuck into my mind. They all had very noticeable colours in their faces, the villains would often have pale colours likes blues and purples. Whereas the heroine would have pinker bits on their faces.

 I decided I wanted to focus on the villians face, which consists of blue, greens, yellows and pinks. It makes them seem ill in my opinion. Which is the look I want for my puppet, I just how how unblended the colours are. It makes a very interesting effect.

Re-sculpting the Head

Using glue I placed the head on my puppet and waited for it to set, I accidentally make the neck smaller than what I wanted. But it wasn't too bad. It worked out really well, the head was sturdy and the hair covered the face as much as I wanted. I might cut it to make it shorter.

Just out of luck I found a white version on the clay I used for her face, considering I was going to paint her it made sense for it to be white. The orange might give the paint an odd tinge. I modelled it further so she has large eyelids that protrude out. Along with a pointy nose and chin.

Sculpted Further

The next thing I had to decide was how to create the skin, I tried using a thin foam but I was unable to find any. The foam I found make her body too thick, considering I was going for a skeleton look. I decided to cut bone features into the foam for me to paint it later.

Hair

It was inevitable that the hair for my puppet was going to be a challenge, what was I going to use? Would it look right in the animation? I had to figure out what I was going to use.

I searched around the city to try and find something what I needed, either I needed to find a material or possibly find a doll which I could use the hair of. I eventually found a Pocahontas doll to which I used a scalpel to take the scalp off. I then placed it on a ready made ball of balsa wood.

With impact glue I was able to stick it on pretty well, I left in a vice over night to make sure it would stay. It worked really well. I then started to model the head.

Sculpting

With a pair of scissors and a scalpel I was able to cut a piece of foam to the correct size, to then cut it in half with body indents either side of my puppet. I placed the armature inside the two bits of foam, with impact glue I stuck them together and started to sculpt with scissors.

Let it Foam

 The next stage in making my puppet is filling it out, I wil be using foam. i was able to pick some up cheaply from the market. The idea is to create the skin texture, the only issue I felt I had was I felt like the foam would look too bulky for my character. But I feel like I can cut it down thin enough. The issue I would have next is the colour.

Fabrics Galore

I knew the hair on my puppet was going to be hard (finding the right material that would look good on camera) so I decided to get a head start and look in fabric shops close by. I found some interesting materials, the closest thing I could find to hair was fur, but I felt like this would not give me the look I was aiming for.

Barry gave me the idea to use thread around a round piece of wire to create the formation of hair, I felt like this would be complicated but it could be worth a try.

Developing my Puppet

The first step in creating my puppet was creating an armature, this was created with thick wire. Her neck is longer to compensate for the hunch in her back. It gives me room to model.

I then used milliput to show where the main forms of the body are, I can then use foam to go over these main part and model accurately.  

Animating Styles

I just found a few examples of way of animating that I felt would suit the ideas I had in mind, I always loved the jaunty stop frame look that old fashioned stop motions used to have. I see a pattern here that all the stop motion I like seems to have a dark overlay.

                                                     The tale of the fox - 1930

                                                            Keane - Bedshaped

Alice - Jan Svankmajer

Creating A Wire Frame

Here is the wire armature made of wire and Milliput, The neck is much longer than intended to incorporate both the neck and back since she will be hunched. Both her legs and arms are very long due to her being such a tall character.

Once equal quantities of each stick has been mixed the resultant putty is at first soft and highly adhesive and then gradually hardens.

Barry Time and Project Proposal

In this image Barry is explaining the best ways to create the puppets. Different methods and techniques to create the armature and skin. 

Here I have the character sheet with basic outline of the character I would like to create, and below the the character sheet with basic colours for my puppet that I may have depending on how I decide to make the puppet.

The next step was to create the armature inside, where would the joints be? how long would the armature's limbs be? Where are the focus points? I had to mark these out, which I later marked out in orange to show the difference.

On the right side is me placing the armature within the puppet and what I feel it would look like. I'm not sure how the spin is going to work, for this I feel like I am going to need some advice.

Character Design in 3D

In creating my character sheet I found it hard to imagine how she would look from many different angles, so I decided to quickly make her on z-brush. To give me a good idea of what she might look like before I draw her.

Quick Character Designs

Not particularly clear, but my ideas is to essentially have a very malnourished woman with very long unwashed black hair. She'll have her spin on show and possibly have pin holes to show her drug abuse. I followed the idea of the generic side effects that come with abuse. I would like to see a face a bit, but it's not essential. She would show most of her emotions through her movement.

Quick Ideas for our character design

Me and Ali both want to create an animation based on a dark subject for example; bullying, suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism, self harm. (As cheery and that sounds)

We were discussing it and feel like maybe it would be interesting to focus on substance abuse, we've decided to keep it 'substance abuse' instead of anything too specific when it comes to character design, we know we want to create someone malnourished and skinny, whether it be a creature or human we can decide. But we will start making our puppet in a few days time.

DEFINITION: Substance abuse, also known as a drug abuse, is a patterned use of a drug which the user consumes, with methods which are harmful to themselves or others. It's also a form of substance-related disorder.

COMMON SIDE EFFECTS:

• Mood swings
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Irritability
• Hyperactivity
• Agitation
• Troubles in relationships
• Decreased motivation
• Intoxicated
• Need of Money
• Stealing 
• Sudden changes in friends,hangouts,hobbies
• Blackouts
• Deteriorating physical appearance
• Inattention to personal grooming
• Loss of self control
• Worsening of medical conditions
• Physical dependent on drugs
• Infections
• changes in sleep appetite
• Bloodshot eyes
• Pupils smaller or wider than usual
• Lethargy
• Worsening of mental illness
• Paranoia 
• Hallucinations
• Fearfulness 
• Aggressiveness 

The ones highlighted in orange I feel will help me with the characters physical appearance, the red highlights are to help me with the characters movements and characteristic. 

Stop Animation Experimentation

Here we worked with ball and socket puppets, which I found to be exteremly hard to animate with. They refused to stay in place, and the pins we put to keep them in place felt like they were pointless. Apart from the fingers that seemed to be made with wire the rest just wanted to do it's own thing. I animated the character on the right, I feel like Ali's character on the left has a very human walk about it which I really think works, where as mine has a robot feel, I did this because I felt like it didn't have a personality that was visible. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, I know I need to work on getting a nice walk cycle down. 

We next had a play with the wire puppets which were a breath of fresh air from the previous ball and socket puppets. They actually stayed in the positions we wanted the to. The pins also helped to keep them in place, we just made up a narrative as we went along with these two. But essentially we're both sitting down and the mouse puppet decides to take the yellow puppet away, but he is unsuccessful when he is kicked to the floor in a get away. I animated the one on the left, and again I feel like I need improve the way I animate in terms of not moving it so erratically, I feel like my movements aren't as successful as Ali with making him looked scared. The next time I would animate in smaller movements.

Here we just had some free time so we decided to make our characters twerk (definition: to dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving hip movements and a low, squatting dance.)

Stop Motion in Motion

Here is just an example of what stop motion can do, it's incredibly realistic with no actors involved. The most interesting thing about this movie is the choice to not edit out the line on puppet that show the replacement faces. This was a choice, possibly to show how unique it is that is stop motion, if those lines weren't there you might think that they weren't puppets. 

Experimenting with After Effects

Game of Cups

I had my first over try on After Effects, I had all of the components ready made to make this animation. But I had to put it all together, I felt like it was a fairly easy programme to get to grips with. Hopefully I'll feel the same when it comes to editing my final stop frame animation. 

Introduction to Stop Motion

I will demonstrate the craft of stop motion, through a series of demonstrations and exercises designed to build upon my current understanding of animation.

I will be introduced into the technical and creative process of the stopmotion filming with the guidence of industry professionals.

THIS MUST INCLUDE: 

• STUDY PROPOSAL 
• WALK CYCLE EXERCISE - With pre-defined armature 
• MODEL DESIGNS - Character sheet and construction sheet
• MODEL PHOTOGRAPHS - Create a biped stop motion character
• MODEL ANIMATION - Walk cycle with a double take
• RESEARCH PORTFOLIO - Showcasing your research and development within the project
• EVALUATION - Of 250 words on the project and achieved outcomes