Nearly there...

For the sets I drew everything by hand in ink and then scanned it onto the computer. First I tidied the line work up in live trace as this kept it looking rough and hand drawn, then I transferred these images into Photoshop and coloured the line work and used flat colour with a texture over the top on a very low opacity. I used a water texture for the waves, and a wood grain texture for the boat piece, then used the same worn-paper texture on everything (the same one I used on the story boards).

All the set pieces were printed onto matt bond paper for a high quality finish, and the fact that it's matt means that it won't reflect the lighting when I'm animating.

To assemble the pieces I first cut them all out with a scalpel...

Next step was to cut some card strips to create a framework for the back of each piece to make it rigid so it could stand upright. Originally I was going to mount the pieces on card and cut them out, but this wasn't very economical and the card was very thick so it would be difficult to cut the details out without it looking messy. These pieces were glued onto the back of the printed pieces...

To create the waves, which will be animated by sliding back and forth, I created a rig from card. At first I had intended for each wave to stand by itself so it could be moved independently of the others, but the pieces on the back to stand it up would need to be long enough to counterbalance the weight and this would mean the gaps between the layers would be too wide. The solution was to have alternating waves on one piece of rig. The rigs were made from the same rigid card as the frame. I'm not sure how to explain how it was made, hopefully the pictures are pretty self explanatory...

The first image shows the strip that was scored and glued to created the sections that the waves would be glued to. The flat side of this and the sides of each vertical section were glued to an 'L' shaped piece of card...

A corresponding piece was made in the same way, this time without a side piece as the 2nd set of waves would need to slide through this...

Once the alternating pieces were glued to the rig, this provided one half of the entire piece...

The same was done for the other half with the other set of alternating waves, but with a mirror image of the rigging parts. For the 2nd half of the rig the waves were glued to the outer edge first, then this was placed along side the other half of the rig, with the waves alternating. The other end of the waves were glued to another strip to keep them in place, and interlocking the two halves of the rig. These can now be slid back and forth using the two end pieces allowing the waves to be animated. Man, I'm not sure any of that made sense! haha, just look at the photo below, it's pretty clear how it works, I think...

So next up I needed to finish the model...

I marked out where the hole needed to be for the head and drilled a hole. I worked out roughly how deep the hole needed to be and then once it was done, I gradually trimmed down the silicone around the neck, filled the hole with a glue gun and then pushed it on and held it in place...

So here he is. There are still some things I need to fix, after animating I'd like to go back and tidy up the legs and paint them with the same solution I used on the arms and neck, just so they all match, and I need to re sew the trousers, but they won't be seen in the animation so it can wait, it's more for myself, to make the model look a bit more finished.

The mouth in the photo is a small piece of black card held in place with blu tack. I prefer the card mouths I made but they're so small and fiddly so I'll be using the sculpey ones I made; they're just like the granny ones only painted in a flesh tone slightly darker than his face. They make him look like he's got Mick Jagger lips, but I think they might work better for animating, we'll just have to see how it goes...

E4 Model Progress...

Well I've been putting this off for a little while, I didn't really want to put photos up because of how terribly wrong things have gone and I'm not too happy with the model.

On the plus side it's allowed me to iron out a few issues with the model making process before I do the bands models, and now that the model is dressed I don't hate it quite as much as I did... it's still not what I had hoped to achieve, but time is short so I'll have to work with what I've got...

Firstly, as time was short and I was in a panic, I forgot to take all the paints I needed to college on the day of casting, and the flesh tint I had was very pink, but as I couldn't afford to leave casting another day I just had to go ahead using the paint I had and hope I could maybe fix it afterwards in After Effects. Turns out that was the least of my problems as when I opened the mould there was a lot of trapped air in the mould and the hands hadn't come out well at all.

Where the wire had been touching the side of the mould the wire was poking through and all along the side of one arm was one big air bubble. The feathering around the edge of the model was bad too as the damaged caused to the model during the first casting had ruined the edges where the mould meets...

As the arms were thin the polymorph inside was showing through too...

When making the bands models they will need to be a lot bigger, the arm and legs will need to be thicker so ensure there is a thicker layer of silicone covering the wire and polymorph, and the hands and fingers will also need to be bigger and longer.

In order to patch the model up a little I filled half of the mould with silicone, placed the model back in it and then closed it up, this meant that the arms of the mould were already filled with silicone. I also cut some runners into the arms so that the air could escape, and then once the silicone had settled I topped it up little by little.

I used the head I had already started making for Alice. To make the hair I used felt and cut strips by measuring them against the head and gluing them into place piece by piece...

I left the back pieces of felt long then trimmed them to the length I wanted...

The eyes were painted with brown acrylic, I chose brown as I felt black would look too harsh...

When I had opened the mould after patching up the arms the model was really badly stuck to the mould, particularly around the hands and so I had to cut it out :( This left a really messy edge around the arms and hands of the model which I was really disappointed with. To tidy this up I made a solution from clear bathroom silicone and oil paint with some white spirit to thin it so that I could paint it on. This unfortunately picked up on all the messy bits of silicone and raggedy edges so that it looked even worse that it originally had! I added a few layers of this solution, some of them thicker to try and fill in the gaps. The only benefit of this was that it allowed me to change the colour to match the head of the model...

I made some trousers using a navy fabric from two panels sewn around the legs. They're pretty messy, they need to be re sewn properly but they won't be seen in the animation anyway so I don't want to waste time fixing them just yet...

To make the shirt I cut out four panels of white fabric, one for the front of the shirt, one for the back, and one for each sleeve. First I sewed the front and back panel together at the top, leaving a gap for the neck so it was kind of like a poncho, then I hemmed the sides (as I couldn't sew the shirt then put it on the model it would have to be sewn onto the model, and the hemmed edges would be sewn together leaving a neater edge, you'll see what I mean later). Next step was to sew the sleeves on so that the centre of the sleeve panel was in line with the shoulder seam, this would leave the sleeve seam on the inside of the arm (man that's a bit of a tongue twister). Again these were hemmed on each edge...

Once all the edges of the shirt had been sewn ready to sew it onto the model I tacked it in place on the model and drew on the stripes. I then painted these on using red fabric paint...

The images below shows me stitching the shirt onto the model, sewing the hemmed edges together. This made it a lot easier to do, as for granny I sewed her sleeves by just tucking the raw edges in and sewing it together and it was very awkward. To sew this I started at the arm pit and sewed down the side of the torso, and then did the arms starting from the armpit too. This helped to make sure I kept the fabric lined up properly, I could afford to alter the cuffs and bottom of the shirt if they didn't line up, but if the seams in the armpit hadn't lined up it would have looked messy and needed un picked and redone...

For the trousers I had used invisible thread, which is clear, plasticy and very shiny, and so didn't work well on the dark fabric, I plan to replace it with a navy cotton thread which will be less visible. The plastic thread does work well on lighter fabrics though and I used it for all the hems, but when sewing the shirt together on the model I used white cotton thread. This allowed me to go back and tidy up the seams by painting the stitches in the red areas of the shirt which are darker and would have shown the invisible thread. Below shows the first stripe on the left after being painted with fabric paint, and the other two before hand...

The hat for the character is pretty basic, so I just made it with some thick paper. I curled a tube of paper and pinned it, then cut it to fit the characters head. Once I got the size and shape I wanted I opened it out and used this as a template. Using a navy fineliner I added the detail, then secured the shape using a little piece of tape and tacked this loosely to the felt on the models head. As I plan to use this model again and will be removing all the hair and the hat I didn't want to waste time making the hat from fabric. The model will only be shot from one angle too so this should do the trick...

So this is where I'm at at the moment...

The head needs a hole drilled into it, and then the silicone on the neck trimmed down and the head glued on, the feet also need painted but they won't be visible in the animation so if they don't get finished it's no big deal, they'll be getting painted a different colour for the next project I'm using it for anyway...

3rd May - 9th May

Well based on last weeks list I'm predicting a lot of the little extras I put on this weeks list won't get done, unless I manage to do a lot of catching up. As things haven't been going quite as planned the order in which I'm doing things has been jumbled, and so I'm scrapping the whole colour coordination thing! hurrah.

Bank holiday means no college on Monday (or so I'm assuming) so at least I'll be able to catch up on stuff and hopefully get back on track by finishing off mounting sets and finishing off the model.

So, this weeks plan, which can probably be taken with a pinch of salt, looks like this...

Monday 3rd May: Mount sets. Gather sound. Make Binoculars. Attach models head. Type up Research. Start typing up Development.

Tuesday 4th May: Animating. Gather images for Portfolio.

Wednesday 5th May: Animating. Plan images for showreel and choose music.

Thursday 6th May: Animating. Concept for 2.5D animation.

Friday 7th May: AM: PPD. PM: Editing. Add sound.

Saturday 8th May: WORK. Typing up Development.

Sunday 9th May: Finish all E4 written work? (Development and Evaluation). Portfolio work. Branding. 2.5D concept.

I've given myself a lot of time to do the animation, at least I think I have, just incase I come across any problems. With any luck it'll take less time than that and I can catch up on things!

26th April - 2nd May

Last weeks plans didn't go too well after MORE modelling problems!

Fixing the Model is going to eat into this weeks time too so that's going to have a knock on effect.

Basically, it's all going terribly wrong, and three weeks before hand in and the end of the course!

This is the Timetable I'd already planned out for the week ahead...

Monday 26th April: Make Foil base for head and add layer of Sculpey. Cut and dye fabric for model.

Tuesday 27th April: Tacking and Sewing clothes for model. Add detail to head. Make facial features (mouths). Paint models feet. Paint head and features. Recast Models arms. Tidy up feathering on edges of model.

Wednesday 28th April: Finish dressing Model (hat). Start Models Hair. Finish colouring E4 sets. Print sets, character board and storyboard.

Thursday 29th April: Finish Models Hair. Cut out Sets. Mount sets, storyboard and character board. Tidy up model with silicone solution.

Friday 30th April: WORK. Put E4 Storyboards together ready for print. Put character board together ready to print. Annotate storyboard.

Saturday 1st May: WORK.

Sunday 2nd May: Type up Research. Type up Development. Finish all sets. Finish Model. ALL READY TO ANIMATE.

I have also had to fit in the following:

*Recast model to fix air bubbles in arms.

*Tidy up edges of model and remove feathering.

Dave is going to give us a list of things to do each week so that is going to have to fit in somewhere too! goodness knows where though! I think I might have to rule out having any sleep for the next three weeks!

I also still have the following things to do, left over from last week:

*Add Fingers to band armature

*Flesh out band armature with plasticine

*Make Box for bands mould

*Start drawing up E4 sets

*Colour up E4 sets and colour in PS ready to print

*CV, cover letter , business card

*Commentaries on portfolio pieces

*Gather stuff for showreel

The one and only positive from this week; my presentation went better than I expected!

E4 Storyboards...

So I didn't get all of todays jobs done, but I did get one of tomorrows done: the E4 storyboards. There's only 7 frames so I thought I might as well do them. I decided to colour the linework navy just to give it a softer look, plus it tied in with the nautical theme...

The colour looked a bit flat, so I decided to add a texture. This also gives a better idea of how I want the final piece to look; a little weathered and old...

19th April - 25th April

So, after a bit of a disaster with the moulds for the band (photos to follow shortly) I have had to have a whole re-jig of my plans!

The result? Well for hand in I'm now doing an E4 10 second esting. I'll be doing stop motion, and making use of the Alice mould and armature that I've already made.

In the meantime I'll be making a generic model for the bands video to make a mould from using the same RTV silicone used for the alice mould, and making 5 generic models for the video which will then be dressed as the characters.

I've planned out the next 4 weeks so that I can try and get everything I want done in time, though I've already hit a snag in the form of a 10 minute presentation on friday! so that means researching and preparing for that, AND losing pretty much a whole day on friday when we all have to present them! ack! So I'm currently trying to get ahead of myself!

This weeks plan looks like this...

Monday 19th April: Analyse Brief. Come up with 6 concepts. Band meeting 5.30pm. Paint Alice mould with Vaseline solution.

Tuesday 20th April: Choose 2 concepts and develop further. Make bands generic armature (x 5). Pour silicone into Alice mould. 

Wednesday 21st April: Draw up storyboards for Final Concept, scan and start to colour in PS. Photograph Granny Model for Portfolio.

Thursday 22nd April: Finish colouring E4 storyboards. Start drawing up E4 Sets. Put Presentation together for friday.

Friday 23rd April: PRESENTATIONS. Character Design/ Boards for E4. Colour up boards in PS. Draw up final sets for E4, scan and start to colour.

Saturday 24th April: At Work. Evening: Mock up CV, cover letter and business card.

Sunday 25th April: AM: Typing up research PM: work

But like I say, I need to fit into that the following things that Dave wants done this week...

*10 minute presentation on Skillset and potential employers etc. for Friday 23rd April, 9am.

*Commentaries on portfolio pieces

*Showreel

*Mock-up of CV, cover letter and business card ideas for Monday 26th April

*Final Show ideas. (fortunately I started this over easter!)

More Animals...

I've drawn up the animals for the video and started colouring them up. To create the movement in the video I'll be doing another 2 heads for each character to create a sudden movement when they look at the camera. Some of the smaller animals will be popping up from behind things so for those I might create different heads so that the ears move when they pop up, especially for the rabbit. So here's a few so far...