Year 3 Animation

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The style I was thinking about was the Steampunk style. Old, vintage, clockwork, grunge, victorian. The artwork is really imaginative and unique just how I would like mine to be. They make scultpures, jewelry, clothes and accessories from clockwork pieces, metal and material.





As I've always usually done foresty type scenes with animals, for this I want to get away from that and go more fantasy and use to techniques I haven't done before, like jumping and flying and testing new materials.

Over the summer break I've researched into new techniques, interchangeable mouth pieces, eyes and different materials. In my past videos I haven't really used proper armatures just pipe cleaners so I've made some skeletal frames from wire. I've made 4 so far and will make a few more so I have a good collection of characters to choose from. If I can see them, physically instead of just in my head or on paper its easier for to see whether or not it will be the right character for the animation. To cover and shape them I plan on using a bake and bend clay, it will be hard which will be easier than soft clay, no worrying about squashing or being misshapen over time with use and will still flexible to animate.

I researched into caves from different genre's like fantasy, games and real life. Here are some that grabbed my attention and gave me an idea in some way or another.
















I've made a start on the set, I wanted in like a cave setting and was going to make one from scratch using newspaper, recycled boxed etc and PVA glue. Then I got an idea to use a child's tent, save me lots of time, materials and money. I found one on Ebay for about £5, painted the inside black and started to build up the "cave" with 2 floors.

PVA and paper.
I used these food covers/protectors to make the shape and they were cheap to use and mess up.


tent 


 Rough floor plan
I wanted to ground floor have a checkered floor with computer parts sticking out like the real life caves have rocks. I've found a checkered table cloth that is shinny from Amazon.

I looked into different places that has checkered floors to see if they could give me any more ideas.







I emailed an animator over Youtube called Micheal Parks asking about interchangeable mouths and clay, this is what he said:
I haven't tried bake and bend clay, so I don't know how flexible it is.  I'd do a test with some on armature wire to see if it handles as you want frame by frame.  It sounds like something that could resist subtle moves.  Replacement mouth pieces is a good way to go, and could utilize the flexible clay if you can bend the lips some.  That would make it possible to animate small moves on a shape, like an "o" shape getting just a little tighter if the character pronounces the "o" for several frames.

Ok, I did a test with the bake and bend clay and well..... it didn't work as well as I'd hoped it would. Parts did bend but most of it cracked and crumbled so I'm not going to touch it now as I do like it, think it looks great. Will think of something else to use, maybe latex or back to stitching material but i think that will be a last resort as it's not look I'm going for.














Ok, so I've kind of the whole tent being the frame for a cave, doesn't look as realistic as I'd hope it would, so I trolled the internet looking for building a cave and so far I've seen a few that have given me some good ideas to replace the tents with (hopefully I can think of another way to re-use the tents). I have 4 large storage boxes already so I can start experimenting with them for shapes, placements, colors, textures and features like water, stalagmites and stalactites.



http://ludstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2011_01_01_archive.html

I found this water effect too, as well as the one in the link above with the glue gun

For the characters I've been trying to think of lots of ways to make a movable character. I thought about using the bake and bend clay, which didn't work so scraped that. I bought some liquid latex and had play around with to see what I could do, it is pretty slow to layer it up as you should wait for each layer to dry before adding the next but after a few normal layers have been done can add a thickener to the liquid but still need quite a bit of time to dry but it does look good in the end so I want to stick with using the latex as you can color it too so no need precise painting after with the expensive paints that wont crack when it bends.
As I've already got a hard character I thought I could make a mold from that, which I tried.....using latex..... yes, took nearly a week to dry so thought of something else, clay. Quick to make and quick to dry so happy with that, so far I've made the bottom half of the mold.
The baby/youngster I did a really quick model to see how the legs and arms would fit, the way I did it I did to my sketch but the arms and legs just look stuck on, they don't blend in naturally with the body so now I know what not to do I can make a start on the armature and build it up. I use tin foil because I use clay and it need to be cooked in the oven so I cant use anything that would burn/catch fire like sponge and the foil is pretty solid and moldable, to a point.
The lady with squid I've done a model of using the same technique, wire frame, build the body shape up with the tin foil then cover in clay and add the detail. I've been using odd bits of left over colored clay and its easy to paint over once it has been baked so can experiment with colors too.









Latex on a polystyrene ball 





Cut out the mouth area for in the changeable mouths









 Latex mold










And the tent with flooring and tunnel (obviously not the finished thing)



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After a talk with teachers and feedback I've decided to to take another look at was I was doing and change the cave seen to a wasteland and 3-4 characters to 2. I'm not going to be doing the "patch work" style so the characters have changed completely, as well as the script. In fact, everything has changed and for the better I think. I will be using more found objects like metal, wires, hooks, bones, hinges, dolls and things like that.

I wanted to get a better idea of the things I would be working with, so I researched things like bone sculptures, mutated skulls, doll sculptures and also how the spine connects to each on the bones in the vertebral column and as well as the other bones like ribs and hips. I found a video on Youtube that helps to describe it well.


The following pictures are what I found that gave me some ideas for I could either include into mine or detail work



























































Sites for possible objects
http://www.shopstyle.co.uk/browse?fts=spine+jewelry

Watership Down Film
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v41353155eXsCfWKC?h1=Watership+Down

Backwater Gospel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkDrIacHJM

The Tale of the Three Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN1_h_eGitE

Rosa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG11zhX6_jo

The Maker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXOioU_OKM
















I had to extend to table to support the MDF board from sinking over the end and to make it more stable so the there wouldn't be any unwanted movements.  I used bits of  wood and securely drilled screws through the MDF into the wood



To paint I used an ordinary pray bottle, not only to save time put to build up shading quickly





This character got crushed as it was being transported to the set, the rib was broken into pieces and the only thing holding it together was the liquid latex so it would be able to animate to its fullest.
I decided to make another, similar to this and smaller but still use this but with limited movements









Here is the making of the new main character for my animation with some new additions of My Little Pony hooves, clock hands and cogs down the spine, heart, intestines and a metal plate nuzzle



this small Doll is the antagonist. I used a blue light from an old router and wired it to a battery pack with a switch so that I can animate the light by dimming it





I bought a long length piece of canvas like materiel so that its thick enough to paint on and not let light through. I used black, brown, white and gold paint and used a car sponge to paint the large area and to blend the paint together and create a dark, dense sky.

For lighting, there was 5 lamps to light, 2 at the back, 1 at the side and 2 at front. It did take a while to get the lighting correct through the my DSLR camera. When zooming in the lighting got orange, so i tried using gels, dimming the lights in the end I had to move nearly all of the lights and to be careful that it cast shadows onto the backdrop, but in the end I got the lighting that I wanted, no shadows and no compromise on the camera.

The editing was more or less just timing, fading and cutting as I had done the rest when using the camera so I had more time to do foly, music, tittle screen and credits.
The foly I used the objects on the set to get claws scraping, walking on a dirt gravel land, scratching metal with my nails for when the creature get tied with metal, For sounds that I couldn't do I went on Free Sound then manipulated them in Audition then exported and placed in the correct place in the animation on Premier Pro.

The tittle screen I used objects and x-rayed bones for words but felt it wasn't enough so I used incense sticks to create smoke. I used a black towel as the backdrop and put my camera on a chair and recorded the smoke. I used a black backdrop so i could key it out in After Effects and it would not affect the smoke. I placed in the letters underneath the smoke, faded in and out and did the same with the end credits, then exported them and placed them into Premier Pro.


There was some frustrating moments but persevered or thought of a new way to get around it. I am pleased with this and feel that I have achieved something new in terms of what I usually create and feel proud to see the finished film after many months of work and see what I created have a life and a world  

Treasured Waste video