Brokeneck puppet

The head MUST come off! That's the whole point of using the chest blocks, so the heads and arms can pop off to facilitate dressing the puppets. But Huck's neck tube was somehow jammed tightly in place, and I had to bust out the pliers to work it loose. They did some damage, as you can see. I don't expect the head to live much longer.

I can think of 2 options when it breaks - one involves drilling up into the head and epoxying new wires in place. The other involves making a silicone mold and casting a copy in lightweight resin, something I considered from the beginning.

Back to it

Well, at least I've been doing animation-related things each day! But now it's back to the film. Here's how I remove arms and heads from these guys. First, make a tiny hole with the tip of a nail, then sort of scrub the nail around a little in circles to make sure the hole goes all the way through the foam, and to open it up a little bit. Don't worry, it will close invisibly later. You need to make three holes, one positioned approximately over each set-screw. Now stick your allen key in. This isn't easy.... you need to move it around until it goes in the hex hole in the end of the screw. You won't be able to feel it at all. You just need to keep trying to turn the key until suddenly you'll feel a little resistance (meaning the screw is turning with it). Then you can pull the limb out. I removed Huck's arms and head in order to start making his shirt.

It's nice when your model is also your pincusion!

I'm going with this crazy batik print, sort-of-semi Hawaiian style. Just seems to fit his personality. He's pretty tacky.

Running rig tutorial

I finally got around to writing the text for that long-awaited running rig tutorial I promised so long ago. I posted it on my site on the Tips Tricks and Techniques page. Click the image to read it.

Darcy Prendergast has gone completely off the rails - and crashed into the zoo!

Those of you who have been with me from the beginning or somewhere thereabouts might remember when I reviewed Darcy Prendergast's first film Off the Rails back on the old Darkstrider blog (scroll down just a bit... it's the second entry on the page). It was clear then this guy has talent. And now he releases his latest twisted vision Ron the Zookeeper. He's come a long way. And he's kindly sent me a review copy!

In Off the Rails his kinship with fellow Australian animator (and Darcy's mentor) Adam Elliott (Cousin, Uncle, Brother - Harvey Krumpet) was clear, but here he's moved beyond that. The puppets and sets are more complex now and more appealing. And this time around he doesn't follow the very Elliott-esque device of using the puppets to illustrate the story being told through voiceover. Instead he's created a fully animated film - the puppets talk to each other and there's more movement than the rather minimal (but perfectly timed and hilarious) approach in the first film.

There's a bit of an Aardman flavor to this one that I wasn't aware of in Off the Rails, but that's not to say he's copied the Aardman style or approach... as before he's capable of allowing his influences to be visible without cramping his own style. The first thing that jumps out at you about Darcy's work is the strong texture and powerful painted surfaces. The second thing is the great voice acting (Darcy voiced Sushi, the last male Grey Panda himself, as well as playing bongos for the sound track) and the perfect facial expressions. I believe he makes heads from something solid like super sculpey, with moving eyes, and only the mouths and eyelids are done with plasticene - but he manages to wrangle the most amazing range of expressions from them. His sense of humor is definitely twisted and there's a good deal of potty humor, but it never gets vulgar in a blatant way, like so much of today's entertainment does. And there's an overriding warmth and compassion that saves it from being nasty. Let's put it this way.... I'm pretty unforgiving toward a lot of stuff I see on Adult Swim but I strongly recommend Darcy's work.

Hmmm.... I just posted this and realized I hadn't even mentioned the plot of the film! Let me remedy that....

Sushi is the last male Grey Panda, living in Ron's zoo, and Ron's mission is to extract his.... Panda Paste for the good of the species. Ron is very dedicated to his job, let me tell you! He's willing to go farther for the animals than even Steve Irwin ever was! And in the course of the film Darcy introduces something the world has never seen before... that's right, Panda Porn! You'll come away from this one in a much better mood than you were going in.

And always remember kids.... don't stand too close to the animal cages! This film graphically demonstrates what can happen......

More paint

I powdered them up tonight to get rid of the shine, and they looked too whitish and pale, so I mixed up some more paint and hit 'em again. Much closer now. It's frustrating that I can't match Scott's paint better than this.... I guess it's mostly because I only have like 5 colors plus black and white! A subtler pallette would make it much easier - well maybe. I just get confued when I look at the faces... no telling what kind of crazy mixes he used!

Also I'm getting upset with the new digital camera. It's so freakin' hard to adjust brightness.... with the animation cam all I have to do is turn a ring around the lens... one way it gets brighter, the other way ot gets darker, and I get instant feedback of exactly what it looks like on the monitor. Nohing like that with the still cam. Oh no, I have to go into manual mode and then compute variations of f-stop, shutter speed, exposure etc. Not only do you have to be a photographer, but a math wiz too! Sheesh!

Fresh paint on puppets, and Notes on Notes....

First, I want to welcome a new blogger - Shelley's husband Paul, who has launched Notes on Notes From Halfland, where he offers support to help bolster her in her ongoing effort to bring her vision to life. He's the president of a spiritual group whos focus seems to be to express your beliefs through action rather than words (hope I haven't mangled that too badly!). I'm looking forward to learning more about him and his group and beliefs if he chooses to discuss that. His second post was today, inspiring thoughts that inspired me to bust out the paint and get my hands dirty. In spite of the Januthon I'm supposed to be in the midst of, I haven't done anything for a few days. But tonight I painted Betty's legs and while I was at it gave her arms another coat to try to match the face a bit closer. I also worked over Huck's arms to try to get him to match better too... I like the way they're looking. Thank you Paul, your help is going farther than you might realize! No pics tonight though, it's really late and wet paint doesn't photograph very well anyway.

Peter & the Wolf BTS - online at StopMoShorts!

Eric has done it again! I don't know how he finds all this cool stuff on the web, or talks people into letting him host it at StopMoShorts, but he's dug up three fantastic clips of behind the scenes goodness from Suzie Templeton's awesome flick! Click the pic to read an article by Morten Moen, who worked on the digital cleanup and effects that were added after animation was complete. Apparently there was quite a bit of it! In fact, it sounds like the animators handed the FX guys quite a massive job, which they obviously tackled and then some! It's very revealing to read the article, and it sounds like this could easily have been a disaster, if not for the hard work and ability of the effects studios. But it all came together beautifully.

Those of you wanting to see the film but who can't watch R2 PAL DVDs, here's your chance to see three scenes from it, both before and after cleanup and effects rendering.