Film update

Howdy howdy howdy! 

No major blog posts on character/props/general work recently (sorry) 

Like everyone else on my course life is getting pretty hectic with 3-4 weeks left until final hand in for our major projects. 

In short, I should hopefully be getting the first of my two sets from the TV and set design students i've been working with by the end of Wednesday. I've currently been working on the harpoon and coat for the external scene, with the intention of filming that first. 

ANYWAY, i've got various other deadlines over the next 2 weeks so there won't be an awful lot happening on here (if anything) 

BUT

if you click that attractive looking "instagram" tab just below my header it'll take you to my instagram page where you can find the development photos for my film as they happen. 

OR 

if you don't feel like doing that (im not here to judge) heres a photo of what my characters looking like at current, i'm half way through making his coat.

Credit for Whale techniques

Just realised i'd forgotten to say in the previous two posts that all credit for the process of making the Whale for my film this year goes to Reuben Loane, who used the technique to make his planet rotation machine for his 3rd year film 'To the Heard of the Matter' (online soon) 

See his blog and website here!

http://www.reubenloane.com

http://stopmotionreuben.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks Reuben!

Whale finishingness

When we left off I had a very happy looking whale. 

The next step was to take my trusty 'Gold acrylic' spray paint and move to the 'top secret University of Glamorgan' (technically now the University of South Wales) a.k.a round by the wheely bins apparently looking suspicious because someone made a complaint to reception!

Once he was sprayed, I put him next to Arthur at his current state, i'll catch up on his blog posts soon!

I then used a dry brush and a lot of brown, red, orange, white and green paint to make it look rusty and closer to my photoshopped colour. 

He still looks too happy......

Instead of jagged shark teeth, I decided to take my classmates advice and make more whale like teeth out of a garden broom. 

I also made an eyelid to make him look more angry and less like he's having the best day of his entire life. 

I also covered each corner with painted milliput rivets and made a basic tongue out of painted soft foam

He looks a lot more angry now!

Whale update

I will get my blog up to date at some point with everything to do with my character! But until then I'm having way too much fun making this whale! (still un-named and looking for suggestions (please help)) 

SO 

The next stage was to make the carvings on him more defined. Before they were simple filed out of modrock and the edges were all frayed. To do this, I filled the carvings with quick drying pollyfilla (not all at once) then redefined the edges with a piece of sheet aluminium. This left me with a much sharper edge on the gaps between panels (i'm avoiding writing 'cracks' as much as possible but its proving difficult)

On each of the corners of every panel on Mr Whale (i genuinely need help naming this guy) there will be 4 rivets. To continue the overall theme of 'wonky' in my film, as in, I don't want everything to be perfect and symmetrical or the same size etc, I rounded around 144 (feel free to count them if you dont trust me) rivets out of milliput as it eliminated the bake time that would've come with using sculpey. In order to make them flat on the one side, I pushed them slightly onto my desk. 

Below is Captain Whalen (Smithers) with all 'cracks' cleaned up. 

I've also cut out a basic tongue and teeth just for the time being. My good friend George (link to blog here) suggested that I get a broom or dustpan brush and cut off the bristles to use as more accurate whale teeth which I might play around with over the weekend. 

I also went to the spray paint shop today to look for colours for Admiral Whale but couldnt decide on one there and then so threw this together to get a basic idea of what colour I want him to be. The background is taken off of google and is not going to be the one I use in my film. Im still not 100% sure that he wont blend in too much into space but for now this is what i'm working towards

Advert progress

The advert for the start of my film is almost finished! (Link to Jake Harvey's blog here) Its all looking great! The font used on "Fishing for the Future" might change to all be one font instead of the two different styles but other than that I'm incredibly happy with it.

Other than this I have a lot to catch up on blog wise for my character, props, set etc but i'll do that over the next couple of weeks. Only 5 weeks until my deadline for this project so its going to be hectic for a while but i'll try and keep updated. 

BYE

I've been having a WHALE of a time

I have a confession to make, the whitty title of this post wasn't even my own, it came to me in a tweet from Joshua Flynn, I just couldn't do this blog post with a guilty conscience. But now that i've got that off my chest i feel i can continue 

Everything started going a little slow with props and character work so i decided to have a couple of days off to start making my whale!

Firstly, I took this lovely whale shaped piece of wire to be the spine and tail

I then cut out multiple pieces of cardboard to attach onto the wire, giving me the basic frame. I also added the fins and a jaw separately so they could still move

Once these were glued in place, I covered the whole thing in masking tape as a kind of skin 

To make the whale solid, I covered the masking tap in a couple of layers of mod rock

The whale will be mechanical in appearance, so I've started carving these panel shapes into the surface, To make the whale smoother I used quick drying poly filla, which was then sanded down, The next stage will be finishing the carving and spraying the whale a dull grey colour

Advert progress

As any of you who've seen the animatic for my final film this year know, the first 30-40 seconds is an advertisement for the "Fishing for the Future" program. 

To avoid making the advert in stop motion I figured this would be a great opportunity to collaborate with 2D. My good friend and skilled 2D animator Jake Harvey (Link to blog here) is working on the advert as part of his showreel. 

There is a lot more information on his blog but the overall idea is a black and white esc 1950's style advert with a modern twist. Drawn straight into flash to avoid extra work cleaning up hand drawn lines. 

Anyway! this is how one of the backgrounds is looking at current, its all looking great! 

Machine building

Everythings slowly been going wrong with my character SO i've taken a few days off to work on his navigation machine. I'd bulked this out weeks ago along with the TV and record player but left it from there. When i'd left off it was at a similar stage to the photo above. The next step was to cover it in balsa wood so it didn't look so awful.

I decided to make the radar screen bigger on it, as well as having a hole straight through the middle so I can get the camera shot I need of Arthur through the machine. In the set, there will be a hole behind the entire machine so I can work out wiring/animatable parts from behind. 

I then intoxicated myself on wood dye in order to get the wood to a darker tone and painted on detail/shading. The wooden vents on the front were an after thought, I should've painted dark behind them but forgot to (needed more planning) the grey panels on there at the moment are just milliput. Next stage is making the components that move.