"Not Growing Up" from the kitche

In this post Ill try to show how did I managed to do some thing in the animation. I find most of this stuff funny and dont get me wrong quite clever as well.

Picture from the set. Panayiotis (art Director and second Photographer) and me checking the composition of the shoot.

This is the middle of the summer in my room. The light is firmly blocked with the use of cheep paper and sleeping mats... usually they did the trick.


The shoot where the apple fly in the air and falls back down... How did you do that, people ask... Nothing easier, you take a needle and tape it to the ceiling, take a thread with is the same colour of the background and simply pull the string.
If that did not work (because the apple pulled up on a string doesn't twist) you do it digitally... and that's what I did.

This is a shoot of the whole set. So if you thought that the animations is made by a professional... you could not be more wrong.
The background is made with the use of window blind pinned to the wall. The 2 set is build with two planks of wood taped to my drawers and cause of that I did not have access to my fresh socks for ... for some time.

Oh yea, and if there is light changing in my movie, that's because of my Lithuanian friend Tomas (catering Master in the project).
Tomas tend to woke up drunk during the shoots. Stud up walk around the room in his white T-shirt changing completely the light in the room. Yeap thats the people I have to work with. But to be fair to Tomas I need to say that thanks to him the movie looks the way it looks... and I have much more post edit work to do...

Bunny Rabit Face

I had a very strong idea on how I want the face of the Rabbit boy to look like. I had it in my head, but I find it difficult to put images from my imagination on paper. Just not enough practice, I usually draw from observation. I decided then to ask an illustrator to give it a go and although it helped it wasn't a simple proses. Mainly to communicate ideas piece. In the process of communicating there is always some information lost. And the gaps of information are filled in by a creative person with there own interpenetration.... with is great and bad at the same time. This proses gave ma something to think about, but I haven't been quite there yet.

A friend gave me a name of a nice illustrator... but I forgot his name just now... anyhow this guy inspired me a bit. He is making loads of illustration with kids having enormous heads and big eyes. Caricature. And that was exactly what I needed to see. It allowed me to clarify my design.

Next step was to make a model ... and this bit of work was very frustrating. Switching from working in 2d into 3d portrait was a bit painful... well, took me one evening.

 

Now to take out the real stuff. A plasticine kind of stuff that dries out in few minutes, and gets solid hard (and light) over nigh. When you take it out of the pack, its nice and  white. But its very easy to make it full of dust, so its important to keep tidy while working with it. I found that the best way of working with it is by using wooden modelling knife and spit. Just like with clay sculpturing, until you work you keep the surface wet.
First, I made two balls. I tried to make them kind of the same size and as round as possible. After they dried I put some nail polish on them, to make them solid and durable but most of all I wanted them to shine.
My objectives:
- Hide all the metal elements.
- Place the head in the right palace on the spine.
- Make the Head the right size comparing to the rest of the body.
- Fit in  the two balls that I have previously made. They needed to be spot on in the right place or the whole face would look wrong.
- Sculpt the face.

 

Well, Ill say that it looks nice. But lets wait for the final result when I finish the shoes and the paint work.