Soooo...I made the exterior of the Sultan's palace - still some more gold to be put on this.

The onion domes are plasticine with several layers of plaster over the top.

Also I started making the baron's outfit (yeh, I'm remaking him, i was never happy with how he looked), but unfortunately his arm broke half way through so i'll have to finish him tomorrow when it's dried.

Loving the sunshine :D
I just had a glass of Pimms so i'll have to read this tomorrow to make sure it makes sence..

hehe..

Sultan does Travolta!?

Yay he's finished! I've decided to go back to the clay look - it's more interesting and animateablebleble...

Marnik

A sultan of swing!

Hey, sorry it's been so long!

WARNING THIS IS A MEGA LONG POST - JUST WATCH THE PICS IF YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO READ IT ALL, I WOULDNT :P

During the time i've had off posting, i've done lots of things for the film, most of which was trial and error, more often then not error - so I'm gunna leave out all the boring stuff that didnt work, and put in the important stuff!

When the Baron first arrives in St Petersburg, Russia, there is an illustration of him in his sliegh, headed towards the town. So i had some spare time and decided to start making the town, and ended up getting two buildings almost done;


All that's needed now is for them both to be plastered over and painted. I still need to make some more buildings!
Next is onto something i did aagggeess ago, but i wasnt going to use it as i don't like it much. When i realised it isnt THAT bad and is only a background, i decided to bring it back into the story. So here ladies and gentlemen is the SULTAN'S palace:

I still need to glue that shelf up and put some vase/pots in it. I also need to make lots more furniture and STOOF (stuff with lancaster accent) hehe..
I've started on the first pieces of furniture, two chairs for the baron and sultan to sit in. Here is one nearly finished:
AND FINALLY....
to sit on that chair...
to live in that palace...
THE SULTAN! (headless and handless but the point still stands)
VERY fat but still cool :D

So anyways, Claudio Antonelli is currently in the process of making the title sequence for me (he's the film's editor). I've explained exaclty what I want and found the perfect music.

I love being a director.
It makes me feel powerful
MWAHAHAHAHHA

See ya round..

Progress on the armature

Balls on Rods.

A foot - if this doesn't turn out tight enough I may have to redo them, simpler.
Shoulders and Pelvis.
And here's it all laid out as it is so far. It may be a while before it's finished as I need to buy some more brass to make the 'sandwich plates'

I am also making some dipped latex hands for the armature as we speak (write/read)!

Marnik

B+S Joint!

Hey everyone, just a quick post to tell you what I've been up to today.

Well I had all the stuff I need to make a ball and socket armature, except threaded balls. Today I was looking through my room and unexpectantly found a necklace with lots of gold balls on it. Naturally, I seperated the balls, took two of them and made a ball and socket joint.


I was really pleased with this, it's the first time I've ever done this (except playing around abit with those helping hand things) but it just goes to show, if it took me all day to make one joint, and there are (?) number of joints in the body...

Marnik :)

New camera setup!

I've worked out a new setup where I can use my Samsung S1050 digital stills camera to animate, with a webcam assist.



GOD IT FEELS GOOD TO BE HIGH QUALITY!

For some reason it's not as good quality on Vimeo as the actual file is, but for now, I'm just worried about working with the camera and stuff rather than uploading it to the internet.

For the next time, I need to remember to lock up the tripod so it could't move if it tried! I also need to make sure every detail is perfect, as I'm used to a rubbish camera where you can't see any details.

Oh and I finished the morph animation last week, I'll show you once the competitions over.

Marnik

Fortress gate!

I had to make the front wall of a fortress, with a moving portcullis (this will be important in the story)

Its all just cardboard and paint!

And here it is finished: (I made it so the portcullis can slide through the two outter pieces of cardboard on the wall)


And next, I found this site with an animation competition to animate morph! I love morph! So I thought I'd better not miss out on this one, and have started animating. I have shot one scene with just morph but for the rest I need to buy some more plasticine for chas, which will have to be next week - so keep watching for that!

Marnik

Evergreens! Path!

Hellooo - For the set I made a couple of evergreens like this:
They were alot easier to make than I thought! Here's one glued into the set with a couple of dead trees too.
And here is the set so far - I added more grass and a path. Still more to come!
It will probably be a few days before I do more on the set as I want to be sure everything is rock-solid dry.

Marnik

Mini trees!

Hey,

Just an update - I wanted more hills for the background to give it abit of perspective. I had some left over hills I made out of foam/hot wire and plaster. I painted these green and made little tiny pine trees out of twigs and fake-bushy-stuff from woodland scenics. They turned out looking pretty cool! (Sorry the pics are kinda bad)
Marnik

The Baron lives!

Yesterday I went shopping and got lots of arty stuff including fake grass, plasticine, new modelling tools and paint.

Let's start off with the Baron's new head! Yay!



Next is the set - I've done alot with this scince I last posted. So first I added a big hill onto the back, and then put the church on, plastering around. I then painted the ground brown/green with watered down acryllics. I then started gluing on the fake grass (pictured below)

I need to re-paint that door on the front, plaster got all over it.
Now I need to add more grass and then tuffs and bushes, trees, a backdrop and I shall be done! I'll post better pictures soon.

Marnik

Sets, trees and sleigh!

Today I started on the rest of the church set - this is once all the snow has melted so it will all be green and grassy. I started by getting the shape I wanted with chicken wire.

Then I covered it in kitchen paper and plaster. This will give it a really nice texture.

And here is it painted - I just used very watered down acryllic. It looks really good but this picture doesn't really look great, I took it when the light was bad.

I'm now gluing little sections with woodland scenics grass!
Next, I started making the army of dead trees I need! They start out as wire:

Wrapped in masking tape,

And will eventually be painted. Here are just a few.

And heres the finished sleigh :D


Thanks!

Marnik

Sleigh!

So heres the finished sleigh:




Or at least I think it's finished, comment with extra ideas! Today I will connect it to the horse, and get started on the lots of dead trees I need!

Marnik

Starting on the sleigh

Hey guys,

To go with the claymation style, I will have to make everything out of clay, or atleast make it look like it is. I decided to make the sleigh out of FIMO clay. Here are my designs:

And here is the structure of the sleigh:

I have now pretty much finished it, but will wait for it to be baked before I take pictures! Hopefully I'll post it here tomorrow!

Keep watching!

Marnik

Deviant art

Hey guys, just posting to say I have got an account on deviant art to put all my best rescent paintings, drawings, so on...

www.marnibob.deviantart.com

Check it out!

Oh and for Munchhausen I've decided to go with a completely different style to my origanal idea - it's going to be claymation sort of like Mark Twain, so I'll have to stock up on plasticine soon! I will still definately use the church...and probably the horse as I won't have any other use for him, and he's pretty cool :D

Marnik

Latex head!

I'm soooo pleased - I wasn't expecting it to come out near perfect, but it did! There are a couple of air bubbles, the most noticable one on the eye, but other then that - just how I wanted it!




What I did while the mask was still in the mold, and I'd only put on a couple of layers was line it with thin alluminium wire, in different angles so it would keep it's shape. This was really good 'cause now I can change the shape of his head, for looks and animation!

More to come!

Marnik

YAAAAAAAAY!

Yay! The mold worked - or at least I think it did...I'll have to see how the latex mask comes out!

I've already started layering latex.

Marnik

Plaster of paris mold made!

This was my first ever try, so fingers crossed it works okay!

Marnik

Beginnings of a head for the baron!

My plan is to make a plaster mold of a plasticine head, make a latex mask in the mold and make an armature for the head.

I havn't yet got any plaster, and before I do, I just thought I would check 'plaster of paris' is the right thing to get....?

Thanks!

Marnik

Finished the church - yeah!

Painting the roof:

And here it is all stuck together and finished:

(sorry if the photo's are abit distorted, my PC's gone weird!)
Well, I say finished...I still need to make 3 steps underneath out of wood, but I've got other stuff that needs doing before then, so that might be a while...

Marnik

More on the church!

Yesterday I made the tower bit on top. Here are the 6 pieces cut out:

And here they are stuck together. I used hot glue and taped over all the edges to make it nicer:

Next I had to make the onion dome. For several reasons, I realised this wasn't going to work, or it would be extremely hard, so instead I made a tiled dome:

And here is it all put together so far. The tower is not glued on:

I also painted the doors, and added knobs made of epoxy-putty, and cardboard crosses. Here is the whole thing (other then the roofs) with its first coat of paint:



Lately I've been noticing that my views have gone down - if anyone's reading this please comment and get other people to come along and join the fun :D

Thanks for looking!


Marnik