Week 5

PUPPET MAKING, SWEATER TROUBLES, ANIMATIC, FILMING TESTS

I built on thes skeleton that I made last week and I'm pretty happy with it! After tests with my first

puppet I found that the material cosclay had to be very thin to bend so I made the hands of my

new puppet out of cosclay and the body and face out of newplast. It's super easy to mold, almost

too easy. I find too many nail prints and the clay is quite sticky when I try to animate the eyes. I also

made the decision to add some hair, I used my own (kinda weird) but I painted it to make it clump

and be more easy to key.

I also wanted to make a sweater for my character. First I tried sewing one out of extra material I had

that I painted pink but it was impossible to get him in it without ruining the clay underneath. I then

tried to make one out of stockings, it was impossible to sew or glue so Instead I bought a barbie.

I chopped up her dress, painted it and adjusted the sizing to fit my guy and it works well. I also added

wire to the seams to make it stiff and easier to animate.

I made a quick animatic as well to help me with timing but I haven't added audio and it's just my

storyboard extended so nothing crazy.

I then set up for some filming tests in the stopmotion room. I used a big sheet of blue paper as my

blue screen, a phone tripod and tested out how my guy would animate. It was heaps of fun and my

puppet has a great range of motion but I did bump into some issues.

His feet couldn't stick to paper, I might try to find a gloss next time I film so he'd stick a bit better
He has weak knees. I have to be careful with downwards pressure orelse his knee joints buckle
and ruin the shot
Keying out the shadow removed his eyes. I need better lighting or maybe different coloured eyes?
The clay is super sticky. I need to clean up my puppet before more filming and find a way to
create an easy blink. Maybe a couple solid pieces of clay?

Going forward I'm going to continue to film :)

Footage Tests Link FOOTAGE TEST