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!

Strolling chap

Posting this here as I'm having extreme problems uploading it elsewhere. It's still very early days with these animated gifs.

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 ;)

DOGONAUTS - Enemy Line

My good friends Justin & Shel Rasch have a kickstarter campaign up and running to help to finish their stop motion film.

They are two of the most inspiring people out there and I have so much time and respect for them both. They have my support 100% and if you have any love for stop motion and animation then you should too!

I would be eternally grateful if you could take the time and check out the page. Please back this amazing film. You really wont regret it!

Here is the link http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2131064235/dogonauts-enemy-line

April showers

Good day to all! Just a quick post while I wait for some fast cast resin to set :)

Here's a big selection of drawings from last month up to this week.

A quick update on the puppet

The core elements of the head are done. Now its time to mass produce the top and bottom sections and start sculpting all of the expressions.

I have to give another big thank you to Josh & Nathan Flynn for showing how to do this fantastic technique. You should really check out their website and see how awesome they really are! (click here)

And here is a very short video showing the head off.

That's it for the moment. In the next update I'll hopefully have a lot more puppet stuff to show. Until then, stay safe and keep smiling!! 

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!!

Huge Doodle Dump

Good day everybody!

As the title suggests, this is just a quick massive post of loads of doodles, character designs and other scribbly things, from both last year and this year, that I haven't posted on here before!

 

Oh and a little bonus video of me doodling a dragon