Wednesday 3 June 2009

Replacement Mouths

One thing I am going to be exploring for my puppets is replacement mouth pieces. I had some fun yesterday and tried some quick tests with plasticine. Doing this has made me appreciate claymation animators even more as trying to get the same shape every time is hard work. I think for the final production I am going to mold the head shape and the mouths like the amazing Max Winston has done here:





Max Winston has also inspired me a lot over the past few weeks. He went to calarts then after he managed to get a grant for his short film "I LIVE IN THE WOODS". I have emailed him to see if he would mind giving me advice and answer questions about his film, he may be very busy so I cant expect a reply to any time soon. Check the trailer and the time lapse for the film HERE I really want to see the whole thing!!!!!!




Here is my attempts at some replacement animation




This was my make shift jig for the moment, as you can see it is the top of a cigarette box. I use it to press the plasticine against to try and get the same shape every time.




And I did a couple of test shoots. The first I did without any kind of lip synch in mind, just to test if they work. The second I had the sentence "we will rock you" in my head while animating. From doing this I have found that I will need a lot more mouth shapes for lip synch and for expressions. I Also ended up sculpting more mouth shapes as I was animating which are not in the photo. I Will try some more soon.








3 comments:

  1. Nice one bruv!

    Top dollar that, can you make him say 'I like to give my brother money, pressies and cake'?

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  2. where'd you get those photos of Max W's process?! I must know more.

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  3. They were from his old website which isn't online anymore as it was hosted by geocities. You can see
    his newer work at his blog http://maxwinstonsquishstuff.blogspot.com/

    Hope that helps

    Ben

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