Extension Module: 2015

Monday, 7 December 2015

Making Captain Cut-Throat

Using the character design and character sheets I had made in my

preproduction module I have started to make the clothes for my model.

Clothing

I have decided to use the white shirt for my character from my character sheet rather than the purple shirt from my original character design as I think this is a better contrast to the red coat and also gives the character a purer look to him.

I put on the shirt to look like more of a t-shirt and filled it out with stuffing. I haven't had to add the collar as this will be covered with the neckerchief.

I next added the blue trousers. I wanted these to be loose fitting at the top to give the look of it being tied by drawstring. This design also helps give easier access to where the external rig fits at the back.

Adding the tie around the waist has then hidden where the two items of clothing come together and will stop any stuffing from leaking out.

Front

Back

I was struggling with ideas of how to make Captain Cut-Throat's hat, looking at many different instruction guides and tutorials, non of them ended up looking the same as my characters hat.
Thankfully the author, Jonathan Emmett had written a blog post explaining how to make Captain Cut-Throat's pirate hat.
So following his instructions, I made a larger hat first then made a to scale version after.
This is Jonathan Emmett's blog post: http://scribblestreetnews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/who-wants-to-be-milliner.html

Hands

To create the hands I feeded pieces of wire through the holes in the armature and hot glued them into place.

Using the casting process I used to make my character's head will be making these out of silicone up to just below the elbow joint as the rest of the arm will be covered by the sleeve of Captain Cut-Throat's coat.

Using plasticine I made a mould for the hands.

Unfortunately I didn't make the mould deep enough and the silicone didn't
mould all the way around the armature of the hand.

I think next time I will make a mould similar to the head that does each side of the hand separately, this way I know that the armature will fit inside properly.

First I made a hand out of Sculpey and then built the mould around it.

This time instead of using resin to cast like I did the head, I used plaster cast. This works in the same way as the resin but takes a little longer to set.

Now that the mould for the hand has set I can use it for the other characters as well as Captain Cut-Throat by changing the colour of the silicone for the different characters.

The silicone cast went well, but the fingers don't seem to stay in position when I move them, I'm not sure if it's because of the wire I used or because of the thickness of the silicone.

I have re-cast the hands using a smaller cast made from plasticine. This has made the hands easier to move and the fingers also stay in the position they have been moved to.

Touch-ups

I seem to have the problem that when I cast the hands they end up far too big for my character, I'm unsure as to how to fix this as I can't make the cast any smaller.

Because I need to start animating with this character I think it would be best to leave the hands without the silicone cast and then if I get chance to make the full film I will re-cast the hands once I have had chance to research how to make a smaller cast.

Boots

I have decided to cast the boots out of silicone as well so that I can keep the bending movement for the ball of the foot and the ankle in the boot.

Using the same method as the hands I surrounded armature in Sculpey and then made a cast from it.

The silicone cast didn't seal as well as I had hoped but I think this can be repaired by painting silicone in the openings.

I have also re-cast the boot using a smaller mould and also pouring the silicone over both sides of the boot so that both sides seal together and are less likely to have air bubbles between the sides.

Because I need to start animating with this character I think it would be best to leave the boots without the silicone cast and then if I get chance to make the full film I will re-cast the boots once I have had chance to research how to make a smaller cast.

Captain Cut-Throat Finished

Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books.

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Armature Design

Measurements of the armature over my character.

How the armature will look.

The finished armature.

Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books.

References Into Building Stop Motion Puppets

How To Create A Stop Motion Puppet

A stop motion puppet needs to be designed for the purpose of the film and what it will be required to do. It needs to be strong enough to hold a pose between frames, and needs to withstand being touched and moved frequently.

Making sure that the puppet is the right size for use is the first thing to consider. Puppets that are too small will be hard to create detail and will be difficult to manoeuvre. Also puppets that are too tall will often be difficult to keep in position between frames and will also be costly as the set will have to be big to fit the puppet in the environment.

So designing the characters that are fit for purpose and work within the desired world created for them is the best place to start before making the puppet.

measuring for an armature I

made in my stop motion module.

Creating a wire skeleton to put the clay or silicone over will ensure the puppet will stay in position and will bend for the joint movement.

A quick armature I made as a practice.

In future models I will make the armature a lot

sturdier to withstand the frequent movement.

Padding out the skeleton with styrofoam will make the puppet lighter than if it was padded out with plasticine or clay.

Armature made for practicing sculpting

in my stop motion module.

After the skeleton has been padded out the clay or silicone can be added over the top to create a skin.

In places where there is going to be clothes, the padding wont necessarily won't need to be covered as this will be adding weight that isn't needed.

I have a demonstration link for silicone mold making here:

http://louisestopmotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/silicone-mold-making.html

Making Norman From ParaNorman

Face Replacements

For the head most modern stop motion films will use face replacements.

This means the facial expression can be taken out and replaced with another one.

Rapid prototyping, or 3D printing is to create a 3D computer model and have it printed out as a physical replica. The technology behind rapid prototyping has many other uses and implications in itself, but in the film Coraline (2009) helped put it on the map for the use as an animation technique. The area of the film where it was used the most was the facial animation on certain main characters. The faces on characters like Wybie, Coraline's Mother, Other Mother, and Coraline herself consisted of thin replacement masks that we removed and replaced for each frame of the animation.

Priebe, K. A. and Selick, H. (2010) The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation [With CDROM]. 1st edn. Boston, MA: Course Technology Cengage Learning.

I found this YouTube video by animateclay on how to make replacement heads, it's helpful in the way he shows how to mould the heads and where to position the cut-off point.