Sculpey and Clay puppet, mouth replacement webfind.

So Here a test by robyn ng, link to blog here. Only 15 replacement mouths made out of painted sculpey used. I'm liking this look and may take a new direction with the puppet making for this project.

Platsil-gel 10 hand test

So I finally got a chance to test how the platinum silicon rubber would hold up in the mold. I made a new mold of an entire arm this time, which will give more options when it comes to clothing.



I did a quick test just to make sure it would still cure with the oil based paint I got.

The result, this stuff is not the best choice for the arms or hands, seeing as though it broke one side of the mold, though this could have been do to me forgetting to vaseline up both sides, though the rubber did not adhere to the fingers as well as the slip latex did. I will probably using this stuff for the head, and or shoes.

Nokia Spot

using a phone's camera, makes me think what could be possible with an iPhone 3gs?

I love that they show the camera rig at the end

Hand crazy: take 2

So here is a quick animation with the second attempt hand. The hand came out ok, but could be better. There is a discrepancy in the lighting, something to work at as well. I have some script re visioning to do in the mean time. Though will have some tests up with the silicone rubber, and some test heads for the female lead coming up.

Hand CRAZy!!!

Over the weekend I casted a mold in hydrocal (plaster) from a hand I sculpted in Plastilina.

Scale drawings, so I have reference size while sculpting.

finished plastilina hand, armature is .33mm steel wire and 1/16th"aluminum wire held with epoxy putty.

Me pouring hydrocal into the bottom mold.

Hydrocal setting underneath the plastinlina hand and armature.

The dried two piece mold.

The latex arrived!

The webbing around the hand and between the fingers is called "The Flashing" a by-product of the plastic wrap needed to keep the hydrocal apart while the second half dried.

A mangled excuse of a hand.

So first try didn't come out so well (the latex need more time to dry), I'm going to try to mold the hand again this time using Vaseline as a release (as suggested by Elvis), this should cut down on "the flashing", The finger armature I realize must lay on the surface of both pieces of the mold so as to ensure a correct placement within the casting later on, (Though on a positive note the finger armature itself works like a charm). I'm also going to use a firmer grade plastilina in the sculpt of the hand. That should give the mold a stronger definition.

More tomorrow!

Knitting Scarf - Take 2

I'll write more later about the process, but here are some pictures of the second scarf I started - this time with US 0 double-pointed needles and baby alpaca 2 ply lace. Special thanks to the owner of Yarntopia who helped us find the correct yarn.

Enjoy!

New Software Development...very Exciting!

The past few months I've been doing stop motion tests with a program called iStopmotion. As the name implies it is mac friendly. Though in my search for a practical camera on the stopmotionanimation.com message boards I came across Dragon Stop Motion. After downloading their trial version I was blown away! Not only is it pack with more features that I know what to do with, it's about half the price of all the other "pro" stop motion software out there.

                                          
The program also comes with a USB numeric pad controller. Allow the animation to take place away from the computer.

I'm sold! It gets better, the program allows for rotoscoping dialogue, and includes the tool to scrub an audio track and assign and phoneme sound to it's corresponding frame! Then a dialog box will alert you to which mouth sound will be needed in the next few frames. Brilliant!

According to the website live view capturing is also capable with a handful of EOS cameras...SAY WHAT!!!!

Among these features these also stand out for me:

- Highly customizable line grid to compose the frame.

- In program matte, taking the guess work out of what will be in the frame once cropped in final cut.

- 3D. No joke. With a special camera mount and an other hardware component, 3D rendering is now a possibility.

Mel's Miniature Scarf

My first attempt at miniature knitting! Since it's Labor Day, the place where I buy my yarn is closed, so I used some double pointed needles that I already had (No. 2) and some black and white string. Knitting on a miniature scale wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, but I did have issues at first keeping the stitches the same size at the end of the rows. Hopefully this will be easier with different needles! 

Knitmation 2

Here is the "Making of..." video for the natural gas commercial. According to an article about the spot, it took a month of pre-production and then 4 days/nights of shooting - 40+ crew and 4 different cameras. Beautiful!

www.knittingdaily.com

Directed by  Olivier Babinet

Knitmation.

So this is a mix of stop motion and live action. I'd love to know how this was done?

Walking to Wai

I decided to make a stop-motion video on our way to breakfast yesterday morning. I was inspired by an experimental film that I saw recently shot in the same way. Jon said it reminds him of Google maps.

Camera: Canon Power Shot Digital Elph SD940 IS

Test Arms

Here is the first set of arms for Jon's tests with latex dipping (time lapse of process can be seen below).

The Arms are made of single pieces of armature wire (gauge 1/8). The hands are made by bending one piece of armature wire (gauge 1/8) into a "U" shape. The fingers are smaller pieces of aluminum wire (gauge 1/16) that are looped around the "palm" and twisted, then wrapped in cotton string.

Jon uses epoxy (grey clay looking stuff) to create the solid pieces of the arm that he didn't want to bend when the puppet will be moved. To allow the joints to blend in with the epoxy and still be fluid, he wrapped them with cotton string. The fingers were also wrapped so the latex would adhere better.

Jon is going to start a second pair that will use silk thread around the fingers to see which material will work better.

Constructing Test Arms - Time Lapse

Here is a time lapse of me constructing arms and hands out of aluminum wire, epoxy putty, and cloth string. These will later be encased into rubber latex.

Hand Test

Hand animation test. Quick exercise is movement, the hand (modeling clay). Shot @ 24 fps on stills from a canon point and shoot.

Jon Working on Armatures

Jon working with armature wire and epoxy.

Measuring wire for armature.

"Coraline" Wardrobe

Miniature knitting used in Coraline. Melissa is going to experiment with this once I have the bulk of the puppets done.

Armature Test

stop motion test/key in test from Jon Simmons on Vimeo.
Here is the first test I did with an aluminum armature and epoxy putty.

"BIG BANG BIG BOOM" - blublu.org

"Madame Tutli-Putli" by Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski

Official Site (English Version)

The Dilemma

We kept asking ourselves this: How does one film a mouse doing very specific things at very specific times? 

Jon and I are film students at Hunter College, located in New York City. We were accepted into the Film & Media Department's Honors Program last May. Basically this means we get to produce a film under supervision of our Professor, Andrew Lund, without restrictions or guidelines that we had during our other classes. Jon submitted his script, "Fare Game", that tells the story of two roommates and their attempt to catch a mouse in the kitchen. 

We started to brainstorm ideas on how to approach shooting this project. Along the way, we came up with stop-motion animation since it will allow us the most control over the mouse's actions. Keep in mind: We both have NO prior hands-on experience with animation at all, but we're up for the challenge. 

We're still in the pre-production phase and will start workshopping our idea and Jon's script this week in class. I'm sure things are still going to evolve, but we're going to give it our best attempt! 

We'll post some of the tests that Jon has done soon.