While most of the UK were out partying and celebrating the Queens Jubilee, I was inside sculpting myself into a plasticine ridden trance. What started out as just a quick head sculpt turned into a full blown character bust. I had a lot of fun with this chap. I would really like to be able to push this style of character into my puppet making. I would love to see the heads cast in silicone but I need to stock up on all of my molding and casting materials before I can think about doing it. Anyway, Meet Morris!
Digital paint job
And a few close up shots
EDIT:
I completely forgot that I had filmed a turnaround video using a motorized turntable that I forgot I had. Its not amazing or lit nicely but you get the idea
I have finally managed to get a bit of sculpting done!
I wanted to see if the kind of characters I am designing at the moment translate to 3D so I started with a really quick 15 minute sculpt just to test the waters. This was only around 1.5" and sculpted this small to make sure I could focus on shapes rather than detail.
Then it was time to move on in a bigger scale. I went through a few of my character designs and picked out Carl The Thug. I didn't want to necessarily sculpt the thug character but more use the design to play around with.
Then it was pretty much a 7-8 session to sculpt it. I didn't take any progress photos as I was far too sucked in to sculpting.
So here he is
I would really, really like to turn this chap into a fully fledged puppet but I just don't have the the space to do so at the moment. Hopefully in the near future this will be possible
Edit:
A digital paint over just to see what he could look like in colour.
I have been using super cheap sketchbooks forever so as my last one was just about done with I decided to treat myself to some Moleskines as I see everybody recommending them all the time.
They are very lovely things indeed!
Here is a couple of super quick doodles I've done so far.
They are all done trying to do caricatures from photos of people I found on the interwebs
I am currently about to start the fifth week of the character design
course. I am having so much fun with it and it really has helped me to
get creative with my drawing.
Here is some of the doodling I've been up to when not working on my assignments.
I have been doing a lot of doodling in my sketchbook lately then scanning them in and giving them a quick colour in photoshop. I am really enjoying this process and shall continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Then I have some drawings from photo reference. Either photos I find of the net or from Stephen Silvers Posebook
Then here is just some general doodles and playing around with new photoshop brushes and what not.
We worked on character lineups and implementing all that we have learned so far. We got given Pirates as the main theme which was super fun to play around with
I can finally give a little update on the project I was working on for 3 months.
A short behind the scenes was posted on the main youtube page last week and I can now share one some pictures of the puppet I spent most of my time working on.
The tree warrior aka 'Twig Boy'
I started out with a wire armature then built up the sculpture with balsa wood.
I also sculpted a few heads out balsa wood to finish him off
By the time I had finished that it was time to for me to go down to Aardman for two weeks. When I got back he had been molded and cast in silicone. My buddy Adam did an amazing job of casting him and doing an even more awesome job with some back painting to get a a super real wood effect. The puppet has a ball and socket armature built by the super talented Wes over at http://www.animationtoolkit.co.uk/
Then came the meticulous task of layering the puppet with more balsa wood to add lots of nice sharp branches and to also help it look even more realistic in regards to being formed from a tree. I think after he was finished I ended up adding some more to him but unfortunately I didn't get a photo after he was fully finished but he doesn't look much different then he does in these photos.
I also made him some shield's from big chunks of bark with wire attached to secure it to the puppets arm.
I am really proud of how this chap came out.
Here is the behind the scenes video where you can see some of the amazing things that was happening around me.
There are some ridiculously talented people in the video and am so privileged to have worked beside them all.
Check out the awesomely awesome Chris Randall/Second Home Studios website http://www.secondhomestudios.com
The character design course is going great and I shall post up some of my recent doodles at the end of the week.
What better way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon then to update this here blog.
I have finished my time at Second Home Studios and it was fantastic. Being surrounded by so many talented and creative people was such an honour. I cant wait to see how everything looks when its all finished. We were doing stop motion visuals to accompany a large scale stage show of Lion the Witch And The Wardrobe
It really is going to be fantastic and I can not wait until we go to see it. I shall let you all know how it turns out.
Last week I got a spare bit of time to spend a day playing with an armature I had bought over Christmas. I wanted to to do some very basic exercises
I wasn't very happy with them at all so I posted it on my facebook page asking for some feedback which I got from some very amazing animators. Hopefully I will get the chance have another go and try to put some of the feedback to good use.
Last weekend I also started an online course which is 'Character Design With Nate Wragg'
I am a very big fan of Nate's so I couldn't miss out on the chance to get tutored by him. I want to focus on character design a bit more so I can apply it to my stop motion work and also to get my drawing to a level that I am happy with. You can see Nate's work HERE He has a very impressive credit list for the films he has worked on. He has done a lot of work for Pixar to name but one.
I didn't know whether to start a new blog for my illustration work but have decided I might as well keep everything in the same place. So I will now be blogging my doodles and illustrations as well as my stop motion work.
Here is my first submitted assignment to the course. We were asked to create a monster out of simple shapes and this was my attempt. I got some great feedback from Nate and was happy with the result.
And here is a group shot of some of the other monsters I did whilst playing around with the shapes
This weeks assignment is very cool and I shall upload it once I'm finished later in the week.
I spent the last coupe of days working on another illustration which I am very happy with and what I think is my best to date. I spent a bit of time working on the pose and trying to get the right look I wanted to achieve which is getting closer and closer every time I do a new drawing.
'For The Fallen'
And a small close up on his face
That is it for this rainy sunday! I shall be back with more doodles very soon
Well well well what a month March has been!
It started with the end of my few months being a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University. That was pretty cool and I got to meet some great people.
Then it was also the start of a new job at the awesome Second Home Studios where I am doing some puppet making and model making and maybe a wee bit of animating too. We are doing some really cool stuff and I will hopefully be able to share some when its all finished.
But then on the 11th March I had to leave Second Home for a few weeks as I made my way down to Bristol to start a two week work experience position at Aardman in the model making department on 'Shaun the Sheep Championsheeps'.
This has got to have been the best two weeks of my life so far. I helped out with making some background sheep and also got to do a few sculptures that will hopefully make it into an episode. One of the biggest rewards was being around super talented people and seeing what they get up too and even learning a few things here and there ;)
Another reward was getting to see puppets from Pirates nearly everyday and staring them in the eye! Weirdly enough they don't ever blink, you will never win!!!!
And not to forget all the things I saw for Shaun, I got to see some of the animation units and was completely blown away by the size of the sets and just how magnificent everything is.
I should be able to post photos of what I did when the episodes air.
I really did not want to come home!
A big thank you to everyone there for taking the time to talk and show me what its like at Aardman. Maybe one day I will be back for a longer period of time.... you never know
Here are a few drawings I have done over the past couple of months as I don't like doing a blog post without having something to show even if they bare no relevance to what I have been talking about :D
These two are just quick things from when I went to Bristol
My entry to last months Laika Challenge
A couple of doodles from a 30 day drawing challenge that I keep dipping in and out of
