From Friday to Sunday last week I managed to put my stop-motion puppet of the sun together as I had hoped, I'm really happy with the outcome and I feel like he looks better than my sketches too.
I built him up from a wire skeleton with epoxy putty to keep parts solid and then sculpted the head from polymer clay. I then painted the head a warm yellow, keeping the eyes a slightly lighter yellow so they would stand out more. I also added a light layer of gold paint to them so they would shimmer a little. I then added the line details in gold, orange, yellow and reddish brown as well as the pupils and the nose.
My next step was padding out the body with strips of fleece and wrapping the hands in thread. I ended up redoing the hands because I used embroidery thread at first and it was too clumsy looking, so I ended up using thinner threads instead which looked much better.
I then started on the outfit. I had made my pattern and cut out my pieces from the starry fabric I had found in an old pair of pyjama trousers in a charity shop and then it was only sewing them together around the body. I also found a scrunchie made of recycled sari in another charity shop that I thought would work really well as a ruff as well as matching the colour scheme so I tested it out at this point and thought it looked great! I then made a bag and some boots out of felt.
My final steps were adding the laces to the boots, which I mainly did to distract from the otherwise clumsy nature of them, the tail, and the mane. I made the laces with pale thread and simply sewed a few lines up the boots and tied it into a bow at the top to finish. For the tail I cut made a tube of plain fabric to go over the metal tail and painted it with Posca pens and gold acrylic paint. I mimicked the style of lines that I had done on the face to make sure it all matched. I later remember to add a tuft to the tail too, as lions' tails aren't like the lions of other cats, I made this tuft in the same way as the mane. I left the mane to last because I knew I would enjoy making it as I made some rag dolls over the summer with wool hair and knew I wanted to use the same method. I wrapped my different wools around a sheet of cardboard I had cut to the length I wanted the mane to be and then sewed across the top. I then cut the wool at the bottom, making a line of fluffy wool which I sewed onto a piece of brown fabric I had cut into the shape of the head and neck of my puppet.
I glued the fabric to the top of the head using hot glue and he was done! I had painted the stripes on the face to match with the colours I was to put in the mane to make sure it all matched up and I think this worked well in pulling the puppet together.
I found that the ruff pushed up the mane in a really lovely way, making the back of his head seem as full and fluffy as the front.
The only thing left to do was to start moving him!
Here is my lion in the studio before the stop-motion set-up was up, I played about with the 'helping hand' rig and the tie down stage. I practised putting him into some of the extreme poses featured in the animatic like his landing and reaching up to strike the match.
I could then start animating him!
I did these tests on Tuesday (except for the last which I did on Friday) and had a lot of fun making them. I've put them in the order I made them, so I started out by testing the movement of a shot that I thought would be difficult- when he is jumping down off the roof, followed by some composited shots to see if the green screen worked. I feel like my standing tests went well as they are rigged up and tied down at the feet, whereas I found it hard not to have him jiggling around the frame in the ones where he is sat down. I could remedy this by putting a magnet in his butt so that he could be tied down from there, or use two rigs to keep him in place, which I may use to help him jump too. I need to be more careful with how I position the rig in later tests so that it's not in the way of the character and is easy to edit out when the time comes.
The retry of the jump landing is after I rebuilt part of the puppet's body, as the wire I used has turned out to be too thin and both of the arms ended up breaking. I used a thicker wire left over from a puppet I made last year to make a new spine and arms, which are much sturdier, although a little harder to move so freely. Next time I make one I will order wire from animation toolkit rather than buying wire from an art store as that way I'll know it's suitable for both movement and durability. This is why the hand look a little scary in that shot, as I haven't gone over them with thread yet.
Hopefully by the beginning of next week my puppet will be back to fully working condition and I will be able to have fun in the stop-motion set-up without worrying about joints again. It's the first time I've done puppet animation with rigging and tie downs and I'm loving it! So I really want to be able to confidently handle my puppet soon. I'd like to have fun with testing out some tissue paper flames for the match, as well as cotton wool for a little smoke next week too. I have gotten an approved extension for the project by a week so I feel like I can play about with my methods a little more now. It also makes me feel more comfortable with all the time I've had to spend fixing my little lion guy over this week too.
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