In full swing

Well That was a stressful week. Getting everything done and ready for shooting took a bit longer than scheduled. I managed to get the puppets done by 7.00am Wednesday morning and with 3 hours sleep and a fun journey into uni with the set and cases of equipment.

For the past 2 days me and the amazing Matt Cusworth have been setting up lights and tweaking computer configurations. I am using the Milo again, which is soo much fun. Today we spent an hour trying different ways to shoot the first shot, exciting stuff.

I was a bit reluctant at first to post pictures or footage of the film in progress but I think I will as from studying the amazingly talented Justin Rasch's blog, I found it is interesting to other people as well as a good way to follow the progress of the film even closer.

I have had to bring the one puppet home with me over the weekend as his eyebrows are peeling off and I am going to try and split a little bit of the hair and add some wire to it too give me the chance to do some follow through movement. It is also a good job that I did bring him home because as soon as I took him out of my bag I realised one of his thumbs had broken, not happy!!!!

So Here we have a shot from when we just about finalized the lighting. I will post pictures up of the finished puppets and set details on tuesday when I get back into uni.
Fun times for everyone!!!

I forgot

Check out my band for Some rock lovin in your ears!!

http://www.myspace.com/wearegohuman

So much to show, so little time

Things are starting to come together very nicely. I am so busy at the moment that I just have not had time to blog whats been going on, so here's a quick look at a couple of things. So I had to change the last head sculpt I did because me being me realized I had sculpted it far too big. So I went back to the drawing board and did a few others that I ended up getting angry at and mushing them up before I could take a picture. Then I landed on the 'one'
(Please Click thumbnails for a larger view)

So with a final head sculpt it was on to my least favourite part of the whole stop motion process, making the mould.

Which was a success first time, yeaaah!! When ever I have made moulds for heads before, they have always gone wrong so I was extremely chuffed that it all went fine

Although the sculpt didn't look too impressed by what he had just been through

I made a head armature as I need this character too have some basic facial movement to get across a few emotions, also I really wanted to try it out and I couldn't see the point in casting in silicone if the puppet is not going make a few big movements.

So with that out of the way I did some final research and went ahead with the exciting bit, which i had been waiting for ever since I started pre production. Casting with dragon skin

Well it didn't really work out very well at all. I think I used way too much pigment or I didn't mix the too parts of the silicone thoroughly enough. Either way I learned a lot and it was fun. I suppose on the plus side if I ever make a zombie film then I have a head for that!!

2nd time went ok, but left very bad air bubble pockets on the nose and forehead. I'm not sure what I did wrong here and could only think that brushing it into the mould first may combat that problem

3rd time was a an almost! But one of the wires inside had come through the skin of the head. Doh!!! I could fell the next one would be a winner. Also On the last cast I realised that making a skull, for the head armature, out of super sculpy was a baaaad idea. That stuff is no where near strong enough to cope with doing the job so I made another one and also made a few adjustments.

4th time was indeed a winner. yay! For this cast I had decided I wanted to try adding a lot less pigment to get a real de-saturated skin tone. It worked out pretty good I think

So with the head done I needed to get on with finishing the armature. I bought a skeletoon armature sometime last year and decided I was going to use it. I had read so many good reviews of their armatures that I was sure it would be perfect. I don't know if I got a defective kit or I was doing things in a stupid way but getting the joints to close up tight was just not happening, although it was only on say 5 out of 15 joints. AnywaysI found some screws that I had to replace their allen key screws for and now its working like a beast. I found some foam to pad it out with and spent a bit of time building it up to get the shape I wanted.

I have had a last minute change in the story which is going to require me building a second puppet which to be fair I know I can do in the time I have before filming starts. He's a wee look at the head sculpt I have just finished for her. It just needs a little bit of cleaning up before she goes into a mould.

And here is a teeny tiny peak of whats going on with the set. It has all pretty much been painted up now and is looking pretty damn amazing. My Dad has gone all out on this one.

So thats all I have time for at the moment. Filming starts next week so I have a few sleepless nights ahead of me but I don't mind, I love what I'm doing and am very excited about it.