So I've been working on this in my free time for a little while now, I'm in the process of making a little animation. It's not something I've done before but I love to watch stop-motion and being a model-maker myself it was something I really wanted to have a go at.
I began by just messing about with plasticine, making different faces with different expressions and personalities because I'm not very experienced with making models of people, I've made quite a few rooms and buildings... but not many living things.
This pouty little man was my first little face. By the time I'd taken this photo I'd dropped him several times so he's a bit squishier than he once was. Despite this, I think he's done ok, I was quite happy with his overall expression - I think the large furrowed brows and mouth work well. I was thinking grumpy old man while making this one. This is the rest of the team:
This one was based on my own face
The shape of the smile and large square teeth were especially based on my own. I wasn't really expecting to make anything I was particularly happy with at this stage because I was only experimenting but after I'd painted this one I wanted to see if I could take it further...
Her eyes can pop out the back of her head so I'm able to move them around and have her looking in different directions. I painted her in monochrome because I was starting to think maybe I'd make her a bit gothy and maybe the animation could be mainly in black and white with hints of other colours.
The body kept on growing and I decided I needed to make moving limbs, so I made these little wire arms which i covered in plasticine to enable them to bend and be moved (a basic armature I think)
Using the imotion app on my phone I began to play about with making her move, I made her do something flappy with her arms and blink a bit. She was starting to creep me out a little, something about all that relentless manic grinning...
While making the legs it began to dawn on me more and more that they would not support the weight on the rest of her body so I avoided that issue and I fused them together and made a tail. The tail also has wire on the inside so that I'll be able to make it flip and curl.
I was struck by the memory that I had angelina fibre somewhere in the house, I bought it about 5 years ago with no idea what to use it for, just because it was beautiful. I found my angelina fibre, I decapitated her and added more texturous, shiny hair...
I hadn't really been planning anything, like what I was going to do next, it's all just unfolding in my head as I've been making.
When the body was sculpted and painted I took her to the tattoo parlour for a heavy inking sesh. The tatts are sea themed so she's got jellyfish, a seahorse, a large ship and an arrangement of tentacles, seaweed and a ships wheel on her chest.
She's sitting at an outdoor pool in the night time. For which, I painstakingly sat and cut out a million tiny cardboard tiles which I then stuck side by side and individually painted for the pool side. This is what I like to do with my free time. The idea that was forming in my head was to make my animation like a moving image (well duh)...but I mean like as if it was a painting in Harry Potter- subtle movements rather than maybe an actual storyline. Like blinking, flicking of the hair etc. etc.
There she is, having a sit. And then I bought her to life again, oh the power! I think this little video is about 40 frames or so and took me maybe 20-30 minutes. I broke the ladder half way through. Although unintentional I think it's nice how the light flickers like an old movie, its been put through an instagram filter which has given it a nice tint. I blew on her hair a bit between frames to try and make it look a little breezy by the pool...it's all in the details.
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