Set In Stone
I am currently working on a personal project based around Stone Henge. Everything for the character, sets and props is made entirely by me.
I intend for this project to be a series of shorts set around 3 of the rocks in Stone Henge. The series will comprise of stop motion animated skits around the 3 henges and the antics they get up to along with stories of their fellow rocks through history and mythology.
Characters: The main characters for this series are made using a balsa wood block core, whittled down to the rough shape desired. This was to keep them as light as possible and easy to work with. I then sculpted on top with Milliput to create the texture needed for the characters, I wanted them subtly textured to not take away from the facial animation. The characters also have K&S brass tubing to make them removeable from the set, the K&S in the set acting as registration marks to keep them in the same place each time.
Set: The background henge rocks and the mini Stone Henge for the establishing shot are made from dense foam, carved, textured and painted to achieve the results photographed below. The henge sits on a set made from polystyrene, layered with a plaster and glue mix which was then painted and flocked in static grass. Along with a hand painted backdrop makes this the set I am most proud of, and excited to animate on.
I have never made trees before, so was excited when it became a necessity to add some depth to my establishing shot. I used real twigs (gathered on a walk) which I glued together to get the branches at specific points. I then used wool roving as a base to layer on fake moss and hand made grass flocking. This achieved a really unique texture, looking both realistic but with a certain handmade charm which I like to maintain in my animation style.
Props: I was excited to be able to make some props for this first episode, something I wasn’t sure would be necessary for the characters (being rocks). However I had the opportunity to make my own tartan fabric, due to not being able to find any of the correct scale. Using this fabric I constructed two kilts, tam O’shanter caps and a sporran for two of the characters. I really enjoyed this process and am excited to continue making more props and costumes during my time animating this series.
Dungeons and Disasters
Dungeons and Disasters is one of my background projects. As this is more longform content then some of my other projects, I work on this in between my shorter ones. This will be a stop motion animated series based around the bizarre antics that often happen when playing Dungeons and Dragons, be it a wizard casting wild magic and fire-balling their own party or a barbarian going on a berserk rampage.
Characters: At the moment, the characters are designed essentially as plasticine blobs with a balsa wood core, with no facial features. I did this as a challenge to tell a story and convey emotions without the use of facial features, but instead through body language and timing. The beard for the character photographed below is comprised of plasticine sculpted around a small wooden core with a magnet inside, to make the beard easy to remove for animation. I am contemplating redesigning the characters to have more detail but still leaving out the facial features. I would like to keep them plasticine to maintain that creative freedom with how they are animated.
Sets: For this series I want a handmade, but intentional feel. I chose to do 2D card buildings for the background, designed and painted by myself. However I am also planning on redesigning these as my skills have progressed. I plan to make the building-fronts 3 dimensional, but keep the paper texture. The cobblestone street was constructed in several layers, cut up card on top of a polystyrene base, painted with a plaster and glue mix. The set was then finished by painting and weathering to achieve the look of a well used and worn street.
Props: Making the props for this is an ongoing task as I plan on making a bustling market place for the set, and will need many items to achieve the desired look. Most of the props are made from balsa wood and Milliput, textured, painted and weathered to resemble well used and well handled items. Some of these props required small text which was handwritten on, a challenge, but with practice and experimentation one I feel I have achieved to a high quality.
To achieve a uniform aesthetic the paper cut-outs were painted with watercolour. I would like to develop this technique, carrying this over to the rest of the props to create a consistent and unique style.
Aardman Academy
I had the opportunity to complete the Stop motion 1 (SM1) and the Stop motion 2 (SM2) courses with the Aardman Academy. During this time I was able to complete two final films at the end of the courses; Doughnut of the Dead for SM1 and Aliens Among Us for SM2. For SM1 we were tasked to create a final film that showcased all of the skills we learnt during the course - the basic principals of animation and basic character animation. For SM2 we had to create a final film around a piece of dialogue, encapsulating everything we learned about advanced character animation and lip sync. For my film I chose to use a clip from Creature Comforts provided by the Aardman Academy.
SM1: I had never animated anything like this prior to the course so I decided to keep the set basic allowing the character animation to shine through. For the background I created the illusion of a black void, to give a sense of isolation for the character. I felt this had a nice contrast to the comedic elements of the animation. I did however go into more detail when it came to the props as they had a greater role in the animation. The bench was constructed from balsa wood and polymer clay, then textured, painted and weathered. The doughnut is sculpted from polymer clay, and I used leftover pink plastic tubing for the sprinkles. I made the bin from a mix of balsa wood, Milliput and wire, and filled it with items of ‘trash’ that were in keeping with the theme of the animation - I made miniature face masks to add to the top of the pile. The newspaper is my favourite prop I made for this. It is completely animatable, having sandwiched tin foil in between each page of the paper. I then illustrated, painted and weathered it to blend into the rest of the rubbish pile.
SM2: I decided to go bigger for this final film, building on everything I learned on the previous course. More detailed sets, more detailed props and more advanced lighting. In comparison to what I can achieve now the set is considered pretty basic, however it is still one of my most used and loved sets. On a base of MDF I layered polystyrene with a plaster and PVA mix to create the texture of the road. I carved the pavement from dense foam, textured, painted and weathered it. The shop fronts are foam board, designed and hand painted to look like shops you would find in a British touristy village. To achieve this I used a mix of acrylic paints and paint markers. The bin I carved for this film is also one of my most used props, and is a balsa wood core I then sculpted on top of with Milliput and hand painted to look like and average bin you would find on the street. I used these same methods to create the policeman’s helmet, with the exception of adding K&S brass tubing so it was removeable from the puppet. The puppets themselves were made with a wooden core so they could be mounted and rigged, with plasticine sculpted on top for complete creative freedom to animate.
Fable Feast & Animation Wildcard
Fable Feast: After college I had the opportunity to collaborate with Fable Feast on one of their Cursed Verse projects. I worked as part of a team on the Pesta project. Pesta is a witch-like creature from Scandinavian folklore and the personification of plagues. This animation is set to a poem depicting the legend of Pesta and the plague. I had many roles on this project, including storyboarding, character and set design, animation as well as other jobs. This was both a fun collaboration and an eye opener for me on what I could achieve.
This was my first time creating sets and props, and I learned how much I enjoyed it through this project. The walls and floor were made from craft popsicle-sticks and balsa wood, textured and painted to look old and weathered. I made the witches broom and rake from yarn covered wire and balsa wood, topped with a sculpted Milliput skull. I designed the character around the fact that her legs do not appear in the shot, this simplified the design allowing for a functional and stable base. I used a basic wire armature for the puppet, bulked out with foam.
The most intricate part of this puppet was the face. I decided to use replacement animation and sculpted a base face from monster clay. I used this base used to make a silicone mould and cast polyurethane resin blanks from this. Finally I sculpted different mouth shapes on these to create the range I needed.
Animation Wildcard: Animation Wildcard is a collection of animators and artists that came together to bring some joy to the masses. They put together a collection of their ‘short-shorts’ into episodes on YouTube. Their aim was to ‘strengthen the connection and collaboration of our animation community.’ - Animation Wildcard
This project was the second time I featured on Animation Wildcard, which was extraordinarily fun to take part in and I hope to take part in something else like this in the future.
I took a few shortcuts with this animation, reusing the Pesta set and broom prop along with the backdrop from Doughnut of the Dead. That being said, I also created some new prop pieces for this. I flipped a thrifted ceramic jar for this project. It was the prefect shape and size to make a large cauldron for the scale of the set. I scratched up the surface of the glaze with sandpaper and sculpted handles using Milliput. Next I primed it using a mix of Modpodge and black paint and then added texture with bi-carb mixed into more black paint. I dry brushed over this in dark grey to bring out the texture. For the liquid in the cauldron I decided to use plasticine to make animating it easier and to give a thick gloopy consistency. However I did not want to fill the entire cauldron with plasticine. To combat this, I bulked the interior out with polystyrene and put a layer of green plasticine on top. I hand carved a wooden spoon for the witch to stir the cauldron with. I stained this using watered down paint, making the end darker and burnt looking. This was to make it look like its been used over many years
Originally I was planning on using the Pesta puppet, but it was not in keeping with the look I was going for. I adapted to this by sculpting some plasticine hands on a wire armature and rigged them for animation. I also made some body parts to pop up in the cauldron during the animation; an eyeball and bone sculpted from Milliput and a hand made from plasticine.
Short Film
For a few years now I’ve had an idea for a short film, with themes of time travel and friendship whilst touching on the moral and ethical aspects of advancing science.
This will be my largest project yet, and for this reason it has yet to come out of the pre-production phase as I do not yet have the space to make sets, characters and props of this scale. I am eager to bring this project to fruition and animate my first short film.
