Sketchy sketch

Just a quick bit of character design. I'm trying to get back into drawing in my sketch book instead of on the computer. I still cant help having a quick play with it afterwards though :D

Chris Bowden

Yesterday morning I went to a stupidly inspiring talk with Chris Bowden, the executive producer at Mackinnon and Saunders. This was so amazing.

He went through the process of Mars Attacks, Corpse Bride and Fantastic Mr Fox. Being the obsessive stop motionist that I am, I felt really geeky in that I already knew a lot of what he was talking about and seen what he was showing but the best thing was some of the production photos and videos shown were never before seen to the public, this included A few test shots they did with the Mars attacks puppets which they got Phil Dale in to animate after the project went all CG and they wanted to see what it would of looked like. It was AWESOME!

He also brought along some of his little friends

I wanted to take some more photos but I ended up waiting around to have a good chat to him but I never really got to. By the time I was about to get my chance to talk his ear of the owners of the venue came in and made everyone leave and Chris had to quickly pack away all the puppets. Major sad face :(
I have asked a couple of people to email me the photos they took so I will post up a few if I get them.

Mold making

I finally got the time time to make the mold for the head I posted previously. I wanted to try making the mold slightly different as the way I did it before is a little tedious with taping copious amounts of cardboard around it so this time I thought I'd try out a way I had seen in a few videos on you tube.

Instead of cardboard for the mold walls I used small sheets of perspex and sealed the corners with a glue gun.

This actually worked out great! I would like to make a mold properly, like how Ron Cole does his or how Kathi Zung shows you how to do it on her Dvd but I really don't have the space to get that messy. So this way will have to do for the moment.

I also would really like to try out a different material like the same material that Mackinnon & Saunders use. But i will have to do a bit more research on that to try and find out what it is they actually use as nobody seems to know.

Anyway, The first half of the mold came out great and I was super chuffed at how clean I  managed to get it. Now the second half didn't come out as well which I think could of been for two reasons
1. Too much plaster in the mix or 2. Not enough petroleum jelly for mold release

This resulted in some of the mold breaking inside and cementing to the other half of the mold. This was not too much of a problem as the mold still closes nice and tight and also the other half is the most important as it is the face of the head.

So all in all not a bad few hours work, it could of been better but could of been a hell of a lot worse. One bonus was that the head came out of the mold without too much damage which means I can strip the face off and reuse it.

I also thought I would do a wee timelapse of the process, just for laughs.