Beginnings of a church set

So the first set I am building for this project is a Russian church. Here was my origanal design:

And here is what I've done so far:

The two doors have not been glued in, I will come up with something so they are able to open.

I am going to spend a good few hours cutting out many many squares now to make the tiles for the roof.
At some point I'm gunna have to come up with how to make the 'onion' on top look right. Also, I'll have to make at least 3 steps all the way around, underneath the church itself.

Marnik

Finished the horse!

The bits on the eyes are called blinkers, horses that pull stuff wear them - just to let you know theyre not some *FAILED* attempt at eyes. This horse will be pulling the baron in a russian sleigh, which I've built half of already. It will be made of FIMO clay, 'cause I now have loads of really nice colours, although I need some more so I'll have to wait untill we next go to town.

Marnik

Baron von Munchhausen

Okay, I told you I'd explain it, so here we go:

For christmas, my grandma got me (and all my cousins) a wonderful, thoughtfull present. It wasn't just a book, it was an old, forgotten story of Baron von Munchhausen. Now she knew these stories scince she was young, but they were all in german, so she had to personally translate them. To add to that, she made them into proper books, with ingraved hard covers, and even a personal message to each person inside! In the origanal books, there were black and white pictures, which, for us, my grandma photoshopped colour into them - wonderful!

Anyway, these stories now feel very close and dear to me, and I deffinately think I should create something in return. What better then to animate the stories! Each one is funny, wild and adventurous.

They are set in the 1700's, of an extrordanary man on his travels from Germany to Russia. I'm sure they'll be very fun to animate!

Here are a couple of exerpts from different parts of the story, with pictures:

Here I am not showing you any of the craaaaazy stuff he does, as I don't want to give much away before animation!

For the snow which is in most of it, I will use lots and lots of white newplast plasticine. This is so I can create footsteps in it, and also as there is a sequence that plasticine will be perfect for the snow!

There is also a small russian church near the begginning, which I have started making today out of wood. I will glue gun the bits together, and cover it in clay.


*******


In other news, I have put lots of layers of paint on the horse:

The paint is just acrylic mixed with latex. If I had more money I would use PAX paint, although latex and acrylic works fine!
I still need to paint the hooves!


Marnik

More progress with the horse!

I've added lots of layers now and overall it looks pretty cool, baring in mind it was my first proper go at the build up technique! The head is too big and the legs don't look right, but other then that it's alright!

I still need to add more mane (tissue paper and latex) and then I can get on with painting him. In the book illustrations he is brown, so I'll go ahead with that!

Marnik

Horses head!

Hey,

I take back what I said about the head in my last post - and went back to the origanal idea of using latex and tissue to build up the head.
Okay so I admit it doesn't look like a horse, but at least I can animate it and it will fit in with the rest of the body...

Tonight I'm gunna try and thin down the neck, add a mane and give the whole horse a new coat of liquid latex.

More to come!!!!!

Marnik

Munchhausen's horse

Hey guys,

For the Baron's horse, I decided to go for something that I hadn't done much of before, the Latex build-up technique. This is where you make the armature, and cover it with foam/sponge, and build up, as if creating muscles. Once you are finished building up with foam you cover the whole thing with liquid latex, in thin layers. This technique was used on all classic stop motion monsters and dinosaurs.

Here are some progress pics:

The horse just required a simple armature, with a tie-down in every foot.

Building up the foam. Up to this point I stuck everything on with hot glue and epoxy.

Now I needed to glue bits that would have to move. I used Latex for this.

The first layer of latex with epoxy hoofs and head now stuck on.

Next, I need to make the head. I started a forum post about this here.

THE CONCLUSION:

What I think I will do is use something along the lines of making the inside of the head out of plastic and wire, to lighten it up abit, and then sculpt it out of something hard, but for the bottom jaw, just leave some wire sticking out. I will then sculpt the bottom jaw with latex and tissue, so that it will be the only moving part of the head - I think that would work!

I will have to give this a go some point today, I'll keep you imformed!

Marnik

Finished body

Here are some better pictures of the body - now finished.

I added a half-belt, a collar and some other small details.

Marnik

Baron von Munchhausen puppet fabrication

Hey guys,

If I wasn't rather busy right now I'd explain the whole origan of the idea of Baron von Munchhausen, the story and why I'd like to animate it. But I will explain. One day. Hopefully...

So today I made his body, he's a baron from the 1700's so he needs to look smart and posh. I've been designing him many times and my most rescent design seemed to fit the character perfectly, so I went along with that one. Unfortunately, my camera batteries are flat, so for todays post I have to use my rubbish one.

This puppet was more trial-and-error sort of thing, so I didn't make it a particuarly nice armature, but it worked fine.

I then used a very simple version of the build up technique, just with felt and foamy dish cloths to fill out the stomach. I glued it on with a strong plastic glue, which appears to be pretty much the same as epoxy, except without the two parts and dries alot quicker - perfect!


Once I'd finished all the felt fabrication, I added on little details, the sort of thing a Baron would have worn. The main bits are just string with gold paint, glued down. The rope from his chest to shoulder was made from lots of pieces of small alluminium wire rolled up together. The shoulder things are just cardboard painted gold with wire drooping down. As I didn't put tie-downs in the feet (which I now very much regret) I had to make the boots out of something that would stick to the set floor. The only thing I could think of was plasticine - which I had lots of lying around, so I went for it. They doesn't look great and I may well change them, but they'll do for now!

I'm really sorry about the quality - i will upload much better pictures tommorow!

It's not quite finished - it will need a bit more work!

Also, I did a walking test of him, comment if you want to see it!

Marnik

2d animation tests

First a man walking, then a cat running. These were my first ever proper tests at 2d animation. I used the Animator's survival kit as a reference.

I've got looooads of stop motion related stuff I will probably show you some time soon, so hopefully you'll be seeing more of my blog!

Marnik

Merry christmas!

Hey guys,

I know I havn't posted in months, and I havn't got anything stop motion related to say even now, but I thought as it's christmas, I might as well post something special for you lot. Well I know a few people that visit my blog are very interested in all sorts of beatiful artwork, and music, and I have played guitar for years, and discovered a love for the look and sound of the rare Indian stringed instrument the Sitar. Rescently, we got new neighbours, who I told of my love to sitars, and got the VERY unusual answer of 'Oh really? I've got one!' Of course this made me very excited, and we arranged for him to come round some time with his Sitar, and show me what he knows. He is not Indian, but like me, very interested in the sound and lifestyle. So anyway, long story short, he gave me a lesson and left it round my house a week ago, and it's still here now, because he reckons you don't bond with an instrument unless your left alone with it. Here is a picture of me playing:


This is probably compeletely uninteresting to most of you guys, but I thought it's allways about my animation here, never about my usual life, and this was a pretty dang interesting story!

Please comment with anything to say and if you want I will follow up the story when I'm a lot better, to see if I actually start learning the Sitar.

Merry Christmas,

Fish

Finished the drum kit!!

Woo - here it is:

Fish

Here is the 'armature' for the drum seat:

And here is a finished drum:

Fish

More on drums

So I made another drum, drilled holes in them all for the wire, then hot glued the wire together temporerily. Here is kind of what the set up will look like, with two symbols aswell.

Here is the new drum on a stand:

And here are the two above the bass (as you can tell I don't know the technical names!):

And here is one of the symbols drying:

Since then I have made a stand for one of the symbols, and have covered all the hot-glued joints with Epoxy putty for strengthening and it will look better. When they're dry I need to paint the other symbol and make a stand for it.

GREAT NEWS!

Go to Animateclay.com!
No!
Awww, please?
Oh, okay...why? To look at puppets?
Not to look at puppets.
To download a tutorial?
Not to download a tutorial.
To kiss some sort of mouldy fish?
No, not to...what?
Hmm...how about..... To look at the first post and read that you, Fish have just won a 2 disk tutorial on building sets by making a youtube video of how animateclay.com helped you?
YEEAAHH!! How did you guess?


Visit www.animateclay.com to see what I'm talking about!!

Fish

Finished guitar one, painted bass, making drums

All nice and finished!

Painted the bass, but still need to drill 4 holes and add strings.

The drums are all epoxy putty with cardboard tops and bottoms. For this I am going for a claymation look, Will Vinton style, so pretty much everything will be plasticine, which is what I'm going to cover the sides of these drums in. That's also why I made the whole of the guitar and bass out of epoxy putty.

Fish

Stringing guitar

I finished painting the guitar which I made out of epoxy putty, and then couldn't think of a way to attach the strings.

So what I did was drilled some holes in the top and bottom of the guitar (epoxy putty is really good for drilling holes into) I only made 5 as I couldn't fit another in, and it's hardly noticeable that there is one missing string!


And now as you can see I can put strings in. 3 are drying as we speak.

Fish

Started making drums and painting guitars

Painting guitars

Drums

My edit/Origanal

Fish :D

Guitars

Just making a Hofner Bass and some electric guitar - I started off by making a basic wooden body and neck for the bass, then covered it in Epoxy putty. For the other guitar I decided to scrap the idea of the wooden inside, so I just made it completely out of epoxy putty. Still in progress!

Fish

Table top don

Some of you may have been wondering where I have been for the past couple of weeks. Well I have been creating a simple claymation about a lonely plasticine man named Don, who is created on a table, and can't seem to get off.

*will upload tomorrow*

Fish

2nd video blog and pictures

Replacement mouths

Tie downs

Fish

First video blog

Fish

Starting video blogs

Hey guys, just to say I have something very special to announce to you Morilyon fans, but I am starting video blogs now so I will tell you in the first one!! Excited? GOOD!

Fish