Burnt fingers

Hello there! 

A lot has been going on recently and everything has been very hectic. Last week I made my first ball and socket armature so I thought I'd show a few behind the scenes photos and not really a tutorial but a bit of a ramble about it :)

So when I say "I made my first ball and socket armature" I kind of didn't make it all myself in that I used various pre made joints and soldered everything together. I dont have the equipment to make my own joints and why worry when there are some fantastic joints out there already for the taking, albeit a pricey taking in some respects.

The knee and elbow joints are from the amazing John Wright http://www.jwmm.co.uk/
John Wright's supplies Aardman with a lot of their joints and also a lot of other people in the UK and Europe. They are pricey but most definitely worth it as the quality is outstanding! He also gives you a length of steel rod for each joint making it even easier to put the parts of your armature together.

All the other joints and everything else for this armature is from a shop that just gets better and better all of the time and is definitely helping to make stop motion more accessible to everybody. The joints can be bought separately or as part of the fantastic armature kit 'Armacreature'
It's hard not to sound like a sales pitch but this is the best armature kit I have ever used and I have used a lot of them! http://www.animationtoolkit.co.uk/armacreature-professional-armature-kit/


With all of the rods, K & S and steel plates cut to size, it was time to get messy.

Most of the components

My dirty colourful soldering block

All of the parts soldered together They almost look like I've gone into the piercing business

Getting there!

Now, for the leg and arm sections I needed to solder a nut on to the ends so that I can slot hands & feet in and lock them of to stop them slipping out while the puppet is being move around or even while it holds its position. I drilled a whole through the K&S to the correct size then to keep the nut in place while soldering I just used some old screws to keep it weighed down and to also stop any rogue bits of silver solder getting into the thread of the nut.  A tiny 3mm grub screw is what pops inside when done and tightens up with a wee allen key.

As I'm fairly new to silver soldering I did find that I ended up charring most of the components but
 that's ok as a little bit of elbow grease some jewelers pickle and some sanding got all of the marks off. I also managed to mutilate myself with various burns and cuts and a good old poke in the eye but hey its not a proper job unless you injure yourself, right?

All the soldering done but very charred!

After all of the soldering was finished I needed to then grind down the joints as even though they are small they were not small enough. This was a tough job as I need to make sure they stay strong enough for the job. But with a bit of TLC and mini bench grinder, all went well.

And here he is all finished. He stands at just over 11" tall

Here is a video that i made for my client. It also shows the balsa sections I add so it makes the puppet easier to grab at when moving around.



I actually really, really enjoyed making this and can happily say it has been my favourite part so far of this puppet build. I cant wait to make another one!


I'm currently working on casting his body in silicone. Hopefully I'll have a spare few moments to document how that goes.
Anyway, back to work! I hope you are all doing great!

Big Old Mould

I gave myself the morning off on Saturday to have a little doodle an and play about with some animation.

I made this guy run!


Here's a link to my other vine videos, lots of silliness goes on there :D http://seenive.com/u/907625454071062528

And I also had some fun drawing up my own Joker

So, puppet wise, I've been making a huge mould!

I find the first half of mould making a bit stressful as its something I've taught myself how to do by studying pictures and videos of other peoples moulds. So I'm never really 100% confidant that all will go well.

I start with a big base of plasticine, or sometimes a water based clay,  for the sculpture to lie in.

I then carve away the basic shape so I don't have so much to build up around the sculpt.

I've seen behind the scenes pictures of the certain stop mo studios using what I believe to be locators for holding the armatures in place when casting. I wanted to give this a go as I think its great way to ensure your armature is placed precisely in the mould. I made mine out of super sculpy.

Closing the gaps around the sculpture

The finished half with all the trimmings

I use Coroplast, or Correx as its known over here in the UK, a corrugated plastic I use for the mould walls. It's great stuff as you can make a whole wall out of one strip.

I have used a Ali-Fastcast to make this mould as it is a very, very strong material compared to the usual Crystacal R plaster I use. Basically it's a prefilled fastcast resin that is filled with an aluminium filler to add extra strength to the mould. Very easy to work with.

Here is the first half done, its just needs a good few layers of mould release and new correx wall then the last pour.

Here is the finished mould. I needed to do a quick test cast to set my mind at ease that everything has worked ok. I made a very basic wire armature covered it in cloth tape and poured in some Dragon Skin FX pro.

The waiting game... Also note that this thing is bloody huuuge! I'm sure it weights the same as a small child! And also another note that the edges on it were ridiculously sharp. I have a few rather large gashes on my hands due to this. Nothing a good filing down didn't solve though!

Time thief

"Excuse me officer, I'd like to make a complaint. Somebody seems to have stolen time from me..."

Ahh if only we could do that and claim for lost time! Where does the time go!!!! I seem to be saying that A LOT lately.


During my very odd few spare moments,  I'm still trying to keep doodling. 
POIROT
Then this morning I got up super early so I could get  quick bit of doodling in.
I also tried an animated gif. I am quite happy (for the moment) with how this turned out and am would reeaaally like to play about with more 2d animation.
 I'm also going to explore this character a little bit more over the next few weeks.

Poirot

These two are for the awesome Cup O' Doodle BLOG

Two Face

Teddy boy

This was my first ever animated gif, which was a lot of fun

So thats all for now! Until next time...  blergh to time ;)

We "March" to the top...

Good day everybody! 

I thought as its the end of the month I would give you a wee update of what's been going on.

I have been very busy recently, which is always a good thing! 

I've been locked away with a few character design jobs which unfortunately I cant show anything until I'm given the OK which maybe not be for a long time but that's just the way it goes. But I do have some other work that I can show you :)

I wanted to take a few new photos of the last two puppets I made to jazz my portfolio up a bit.  

I felt the others photo are quite clean cut so it's nice to add something a little bit edgy and darker. 

Here's a bunch of doodles that I've done after work hours. I like to wind down the day with a bit of scribble therapy.

I've also made a couple of silly doodling videos.

Most recently, I have been commissioned to make two puppets for a short film being made at Vienna Film Academy. This is a fantastic freelance job and will keep me extremely busy over the next 2 months. I started this job doing the character design and have now started to make the actual puppets. Fortunately I have an extremely cool client that has granted me permission to post photos while I go along.

The first thing I have been doing is working on the main puppets head. For this I will be doing replacement faces in the same vein as Coraline and Paranorman. It is taking me a while to get right but luckily, thanks to the amazing Flynn Brothers, I have a little bit of a head start in how to do things.

A sneak peek at the armature design

This is a photo of the rough sculpt that I did to help me get the dimensions right. Then the core of the head next to it.

Then here is how the head turned out. Unfortunately I have had to abandon this one and make another as it was a bit too large and was causing me a few problems. No bother though as I am very far into to the final one.

So that's all for the moment. Hopefully I will have some more pictures up soon as things progress. I hope everyone is doing well!!