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

Happy birthday me! 13 today...

...that's right people, I finally hit the teen mark! I got a load of cool stuff which will be useful for my animations - I will show you some time!
In the mean time, I got to go, bye!

Fish

The animation I did with SJMovies

A short film by Morilyon productions and SJmovies working together - the comeback of the green dude from surprise.

Fish

More on the bar set

Hey guys, since I last posted, I have done alot of stuff on the bar set...

Here are the finished bottles with finished labels (made by me on Photoplus) and tin foil wrapped around the top of EVERY ONE!. There are lots - and believe me, they took a LOOONNNGGG time to complete!

As you can see, I had to take out a couple of shelves to fit the wine bottles in, but I think it looks good like that. At this point I stuck on a load of mini beer-mats to the back.


Then I made these beer-pully-things out of fimo (like all the bottles), and hot-glued them to the bar. I can tell this set's going to be good!!!

Now, do you remember the outdoor set I made a few weeks ago? Well like I said at that point, me and SJ Movies are going to do a joint production of a short cartoony stop motion. It's almost ready to start shooting, but today, we are just going to do some tests, and see how he (Sam - producer/director) likes the set and puppets. I am going to try and make a video blog at some point with him, to put on youtube and show what we've been up to!

Fish

BOTTLES, BOTTLES, AND MORE BOTTLES...

Obviously these bottles are still unfinished - but it's a start...i suppose...

Fish

Beginnings of a bar set

Hey guys, my entry to the stikfas competition will be set in a bar, so I got to work right away! Here are some behind the scenes pictures:

This is the floor...it is in that shape because when I started putting down the floor I was making the deck of a ship.

This is the main bar section - I cut 3 pieces out of wood then hot-glued it all together.

Hot glueing to the floor of the set.


This is the bit at the back (not quite sure what you call it) with lots of wine bottles on the shelves. I cut out pieces of cardboard, then hot-glued them to a piece of wood.

Here it is stuck on.

And here's another view...

A days work :D

Still need to:
Make 3 bar stools
Put up mini posters around the shelf bit
Make billions apon billions of mini wine bottles
And some more stuff...

Oh yeah, here are 3 new stikfas animations I did today:

Micheal Jackson dance

Simple exercises

A quick lip sync test - just to see if it's possible on stikfas

See you soon!
Fish

2 new stikfas!

Hey guys,
There is offically a competition on stopmotionmagic.com to enter a video about why stikfas are the best to animate! It can be stop motion, live action, CG, or whatever, so I thought I'd give it a try! But first, of course, I needed the stikfas! So I looked up where you can get them in the UK, not on the internet, and there where about 20 results - not many! But guess what - one of them is in a shop very near me! When I found out about this, I was very happy, and popped down there today. There, I bought 2 stikfas, put them together, and test animated! Here is the imformation of the competition: http://www.stopmotionmagic.com/stikfas/
Here are the lil' fellas:

Of course this is not my entry, but here is a test animation called Proposal - Orange just wants to get married to blue, but blue has other ideas!

Also, here is a sculpt I did a couple of weeks ago, here I was studying Irwin's (from the Hoosiers) face - it didn't go too well!

Hopefully later this month I will be getting a much better camcorder to animate with, that is what I will film the stikfas 'advert' with...exiting stuff!

Fish