StopMoShorts is new again

Yes, it's hard to believe, but yet again my sister site StopMoShorts has a new look! It seems it gets totally redesigned for each of the quarterly short film events! The purpose this time around was to allow me and the rest of the SMS admins to be able to get in and do stuff, so it didn't always have to be Eric. The last incarnation of the site looked great, but Eric had to spend a lot of time working on it to keep it up to date. Now, thanks to some great PHP scripts by Photokorn, we have a nifty new interface and all of us can go in and ease Eric's workload. It was unfortunately another masive workload for him to set it all up, as previously he was the only one with real administrative access to the site, but now at long last it's open to all of us. There are also a number of new features, some still under construction, my favorite being a gallery of trailers for classic stopmtion flicks!

Ahab gets a T-shirt

Hey all,
I just created a T-shirt design with Ahab's grinning mug on it over at a site called Zazzle... it's basically like Cafe Press, but where as CP just started offering black T-shirts in beta recently, Zazzle offers a few dark colors. I was hoping to find a nice burgundy shirt, so he'd feel at home, but no go. After trying him on all the dark colors I decided he looks best on the black after all. Oh well. *Actually, I just checked, and he looks pretty darn good on Navy Blue! Might have to get me another one!*

Here's the link to my store if anybody wants to get one: Darkmatter Gallery at Zazzle

Now, let me explain.... don't think that by buying a shirt you're helping me out or anything. I'll make like 2.50 every time somebody gets one... no big dealio. I'm not doing this for money at all, I just thought it would be cool to have my own Ahab shirt, and thought some other peeps might like one too. So, if you want one, feel free (you can modify the design if you want... knock yourselves out if you feel the creative impulse). But don't do it if you're just wanting to help me out.

I'll be creating some more (less expensive) products in the near future too. I gotta have me a Ahab mug!

...And (hint hint) I sure would love to be able to get my own Nola shirt in basic black. Or maybe a nice big print.

***IMPORTANT NOTE!!! - I haven't yet recieved my 'artists proof' shirt, so until I do (in about a week) please don't order one! I'll give my full and unbiased report of how good the quality is when mine comes in. There are a few known issues with digital printing on dark garments, but i believe my design circumvents them. They mostly deal with white areas and gradients, which are nonexistant on my design.

Presents from Halfland

My good friend Shelley Noble runs a little blog called Notes from Halfland where she's detailing her adventures in creating her own unique stopmotion series. It's been a while since Shelley has graced us with a glimpse into the heart of Halfland, but today I recieved a package that's like a slice of Halfland itself, in the flesh! Above is the hair sampler she made for me, in her own creative way. Everything Shelley does she does with style. And below is a veritable Pumpkin Patch in a box, loaded down with all manner of thread, pins, needles, buttons, etc. As you can see, Shelley really purts her heart and soul into everything she makes, and it shows.



Her hand-made cards and gifts like this one are beautiful and bestow her grace on anyone fortunate enough to recieve one. I can only imagine at this point how wonderful her greatest gift to mankind will be when she unleashes it on computer monitors all around the world!

Tech bits

Here's what's going inside the puppets I'm getting ready to make. Most of the stuff above are components of Juergen Kling's StopMo Tech plug-in armature kits, that I bought from Animateclay.com. He recently re-tooled the blocks to be a little smaller, to fit in smaller puppets (like the ones I make). Right in front in the above pic you can see the older and newer chest blocks stood side by side for comparison. I had two of the original kits, and now I discovered Marc is selling the blocks individually for only 12.95 apiece, so I just bought 4 chest blocks. I figure those are the only parts I'll really need, since my design won't really allow for the pelvis block, and most of the puppets need to have tie-downs in their backsides for mounting to their barstools. I can't believe it, but I managed to pack all those parts into this one cannister!



In the top pic you can also see the thumb screws and thumb nuts I got from Smallparts.com to use for tie-downs. Nice!

Stop-motion..... Games???!!!

Ok, I know I'm getting really tired of all these little rubber arms and boring explanations! It's time for something more fun! Here's something I've been discussing with.... an imaginary friend. ; ) The image above is from an incredible film called Balance by Christophe and Wolfgang Lauenstein... in fact, thanks to YouTube, it's also a link to the movie... click it to see one of my all-time favorite stopmotion films. And the one below takes you to a film on Google Video called Quest, by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach. Go ahead, click through to both now, they'll open in separate windows and start loading up. Then you'll be able to watch them both about the time you finish reading this. Oh, the following does contain spoilers... so you might want to hold off on reading it until after you've seen both films. Your call.



Both films were made as student works at a German university. And they share a few factors in common that I think are worth further scrutiny. Here's my nutshell analysis of why they're so effective.

First and foremost they're simple. That's key to why everything else works so well. The puppets are very stylized and simplified, no attempt to give them realistic features or proportions. They're cyphers. And the worlds they inhabit are almost featureless. For this reason, any object that exists takes on a special significance. The floating slab in Balance, hovering enigmatically.... where is it? In space? High in the air? Why do these men live there? Are they prisoners? Have they always been there? These questions lie just under the surface of your mind as you watch, but because the action holds your attention you don't get too caught up in them. The story unfolds with simple, undeniable logic that keeps your interest. And as you watch you begin to make connections.... oh, the slab represents society or co-operation... they have to work together or they'll all fall off. Brilliant! The whole environemt... the whole narrative world - becomes a metaphor! And the best thing about it is the fact that it remains unexplained. If there was some involved sci-fi explanation of why the slab is there and how the men got there, it would lose its mythical power. But as it is, the film plays out like a game. One step forward, tilt the slab... somebody must step back. Power politics in action. It's so broad in its interpretation that it could represent world powers or individuals or anything in between. One thing that smacks me in the frontal lobes every time I watch Balance is the brilliant use of moving composition... every frame is beautiful!

Quest has the same kind of simplicity, though not carried to the same extreme. There are a few environments, and they're more fleshed out, but still every object carries power. A pile of rocks, sheets of paper, automatic welding machinery... it's like a surreal dreamscape where nothing extraneous exists. And again, the fact that nothing is explained forces the viewer to think in broad terms, makes everything a cypher carrying great power, the way images in dreams do. In order to create something with this much power, you have to do away with extraneous detail. It's almost as if each prop comes into existance only when it's needed and for a very specific reason.

Neither film really follows traditional narrative form - introduce the character(s), reveal a problem they must solve, and show how they do so. In each case, we don't really know anything about these characters or their situation... the fun lies in the discovery. Along the way, as we watch, we're trying to figure out what's going on. And in each case, the final shot puts a new spin on things. It makes you reconsider everything, adds a layer of meaning and depth to it all.

Another thing they have in common... I could easily see them as 2d cartoon animation, done in an international style. In fact, I noticed in the credits to one of them a few repetitions of the name Prof. Paul Dreissen. If you're not familiar with that name, he's a great cartoon animator, and I suspect had a strong influence on these films.

If you're interested, there are a few really short follow-ups to Balance, as well as some other clips, on the Lauenstein's site

Ok, sorry for the Introductory Film Analysis 101 lecture, it's just me trying to grasp ways to make cool stopmo flicks. Now back to your regularly programmed scheduling.

Intrinsic coloring test and a new casting technique

I asked about the bubbles on both the Sculptor's Forum and SMA, and got some good answers. The concensus is that the bubbles were already there, just under the surface, and that the solvent softened up the silicone enough so when I rubbed over it I broke right through the thin skin. Apparently when you mix the catalyst into the silicone you create lots of tiny little micro-bubbles, and they stay in the mix, just under the surface, or they can rise to the surface. My thought is that I avoided similar problems on the other arm castings because of the way I made them... I partially filled each mold half and baked them separately, and the bubbles rose to the surface, which was toward the center of the arm. But now I've tried my next experiment, which is getting close to the results I want for the actual puppets. I'll detail the process, partly so I can remember, and also to help anyone following in my footsteps.

I started by painting in a layer of pure Dragonskin, no softener added, no pigmets. This is much thicker than the softened silicone, and will stay in place on the mold walls rather than just run right to the bottom, plus is translucent, so the pastel powder will show through. It's important to actually brush it into the mold to break up any bubbles. As long as you have this thin skin it doesn't matter if there are bubbles inside... after all, that's what foam latex is, just a thin skin and inside it looks like a sponge. Ok, so with a thin skin brushed up in the mold halves, I then ground up some pastels on my trusty sandpaper, a few colors to create the mix I wanted, and I sort of tapped on the piece of sandpaper while holding it tilted over the mold halves, so pastel powder sprinkled down into them. I was hoping it would stick to the silicone, but it really didn't, so I decided I needed to paint another layer behind it. This got really messy, as it sort of gummed up and tried to pull the first layer out and ther pastel dust kind of turned into a bunch of thick lumps. Maybe next time I need to cure the outer layer first. But it worked surprisingly well in spite of this.

At this point I put both halves in the oven to cure for half an hour. I didn't bother making an armature for this one, I just wanted to test intrinsic painting using pastels and a solid pour technique for filling the mold. In my first few attempts I tried to fill each half of the mold and then slap them together, which never quite worked the way it does with foam latex, which is light and fluffy and holds its consistency... so this time I cut a channel to pour silicone into. After pulling the mold halves out of the oven with the cured skin inside I strapped them together (first I had to trim a little stray silicone out that would have kept them from closing completely) and then I poured the rest of the silicone in, after adding the thinner and some pigment, white with just a touch of flesh. I was really expecting silicone to come pouring out the bottom of the mold, or maybe to wait until I stood it in the oven and then run out onto the bottom heating element, but amazingly it held! And when I demolded it 30 minutes later, I had the best casting yet.



Here you can see one problem I still want to address. Because the skin is made with unthinned silicone and the stuff inside is much softer, it has a tendency to wrinke. But there might be a nice solution.... possibly if I mix the pastel dust right into the initial layer of silicone it might become thick enough to stay put on the mold walls, meaning that I can use thinned silicone even for the skin. A little more experimentation is called for, then it's on to actually making some puppet parts!

*EDIT*
Wow, I can really lay on the blablabla without saying the important stuff, can't I? The sweet thing about this intrinsic coloring technique is that now I don't need to spray deadly toxic solvents all over in the basement. That's all I was trying to say.

1st painting experiment

The first Dragonskin painting experiment is a success... sort of. It was quite an experience, and involved dredging up materials and equipment bought in some cases decades ago. I mostly wanted to try something ToxicPapa suggested, which is doing the coloring with pastels and then sealing it with a coat of clear Dragonskin thinned down with a solvent and applied with an airbrush. Gathering my materials I had to dig through cabinets and boxes I haven't looked into in many years... for instance the respirator I bought when I first started making airbrushed T-shirts but never ended up using. Glad I kept it sealed away in the original packaging, with instructions still intact! I also dug out a couple boxes of pastels I had bought and used only a few times. And the Paashe 'H' airbrush I picked up used from some guy at work long ago... this was the first time it's seen use since then. First time I've fired up my compressor in a few years too. And the worst part was the fan.... I wanted to set up a good positive draft through my work area to carry the solvent fumes outside (I haven't set up a Sven-Approved ventilation system yet!). So I trudged up two flights of stairs (several times actually... it was a decent workout) and carried my fan down from my bedroom and had to crawl under the deck, through heavily spider-infested territory in the semi-darkness. The things I do for my art, I tell ya! And these basement windows, they're ancient... iron frames set right into the concrete, no screens.... you just open them wide and let the insects start coming in. I swear, if I do this again It'll either be outside or I'll set up something a lot better.

Anyway, back to the real focus of this entry, the painting experiments. I started by grinding up some pastels on a piece of sandpaper and I picked some up on the corner of a paper towel and tapped it onto the silicone arms. They're slightly sticky anyway as really soft silicone will be, but I had powdered them to reduce that. They took the pastels fairly well, but it was pretty hard to work with. Not at all like a decent pastel paper. But with a little effort I was able to get some very nice gradations and blends. For these arms I don't need much color, just maybe a little red at the elbows and maybe the wrists, and on the fingers when I make the real arms. But I tried to blend colors to approximate the painting Scott Radke did on the heads. Here's the pic again from my old blog at www.darkstrider.net:



Lots of nice color blending there! Pastels are perfect for those kind of blends, which is why I wanted to try out this technique in particular. I tried a couple of others as well, but they weren't successful for reasons I'll go into in a bit. But back to last night's test. Here's what they came out looking like:



This is actually after sealing with thinned-down Dragonskin and baking for half an hour to speed-cure, but it looks pretty much identical to the way they did before I airbrushed on the rubber. Ok, once I was happy with the results of the pastel application the real fun began. With a growing horde of buzzing things swarming around the light I strapped on my respirator and goggles, feeling like Darth Vader, and cranked up the compressor. I mixed up a small batch of Dragonskin with approximately the same amount of plasticizer (silicone oil) that I used on the arms - about 50%, and then I added a nice big slug of D-Limonene. In his book Silicone Art, Tom McLaughlin recommends using 1 part silicone to 5 parts thinner, so I eyeballed it and mixed it up with my trusty paintbrush handle. Then I poured out a little into my airbrush cup and started spraying it on. If I wasn't wearing the goggles I would have smacked myself on the forehead right then, because I had never used the Paasche H before, and I wasn't sure how to adjust the spray pattern. I should have messed with it first with just some water. But no time for such niceties, so I just learned on the fly. Pretty simple actually. The first thing I noticed is that I couldn't detect the faintest hint of the bitter, eye-burning, throat-burning stench of the solvent. Inside my respirator cocoon I was experiencing a nice spring afternoon in the meadow while around me the buggies were in the gas chamber! Oh, and I had let my dog out a while ago, but the process took quite a while to get underway, so by now she was scratching like mad at the door, adding another layer of anxiety.

It went quite well, but then it was simply a matter of spraying a coating of clear rubber over my pastel work to seal it. Then I bent the wires into hooks and hung the arms in my convection oven to cure. All told, it was a great success up to this point. But something weird happened that I don't know what to make of. First here's a close-up shot of the "good arm" (paintwise anyway) so you can see the subtle color blending and the nice surface quality. Bear in mind I hadn't trimmed the seam lines before starting. I wish I would have.... it was a mental lapse, but this was just a test of the painting process, so try to ignore the ugly seam lines and other problems.



Ok, that was the pink arm - that one seems fine, but the other one - the translucent white one, did something weird:



Those little holes weren't there to begin with... they appeared when I rubbed my thumb over it to test the paint. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't smear or peel off the way PAX paint can on foam latex. And it didn't at all... the paint seems to have bonded completely and become an integral part of the rubber. But when I rubbed my thumb over it fairly hard those little bubbles appeared. I could feel it happening too. Weird. I tried it on the other arm and it doesn't happen to that one. Weird. If anybody has any idea what could cause that, by all means please comment! I need to ask a few silicone gurus about it.

Here's something I just noticed after taking these pics that might explain it:



See the smudges on the table? They came from the silicone arms! Funny, they feel completely dry. But somehow the pigment is coming off. I thought maybe I just missed sme spots with my rubber selaing coat, but it smears off like that all over, and it seems kind of liquid/gooey (though you can't feel it at all on your fingers). So it seems like the Dragonskin just isn't fully cured. Possibly the added solvent slows the cure time. And I've thought of a possibility for the little holes in the one arm - maybe there was just too much pastel powder piled up. I know you're not supposed to put it on thick at all... if you want to build up a few layers you're supposed to seal between each layer. I don't know though... could be any number of things.

I tried a couple other techniques too while I was all set up. One was to mix powdered pastels directly into the thinned Dragonskin, and one was to add some oil paint to it. Neither worked for me. I'm sure I didn't do it right though... Tom McLaughlin recommends grinding pastels into the rubber with a pestle and mortar and using a very specific ratio, but I just sprinkled some in and mixed it with my paintbrush handle. I got a spotty, grainy mess when I tried to spray it. I got much the same when I tried oil paint (actually alkyd, which is oil paint in a synthetic Alkyd binder so it dries faster). With better measuring and grinding I'm sure it would work better. But these were just afterthoughts tacked on to my main experiment, and the buggies were getting thick and heavy by now, and the dog had nearly scratched through the door, so I wrapped it up. It was pretty scary taking off the respirator, I knew the basement was a gas chamber, especially after cleaning out the airbrush which involves spraying pure solvent through it followed by denatured alcohol. I wiped off every surface I had touched with the stinky stuff and put the paper towels in plastic bags that I tied shut. But sure enough, when I peeled off the respirator, it stank to high heaven! I was afraid the smell would linger for a long time... days or weeks even, but tonight it's almost entirely gone. I would have blogged this last night, but needless to say I had to vacate the basment for the rest of the night.