My project has taken a bit of a turn as once I had storyboarded my siren idea and put it to the rough timing of the music I didn't like it anymore. It felt too complex and like the narrative I had made didn't do the drama and scale of the music justice. I also wasn't sure if the story was readable as I had thought about the story so much that I was wondering if I could only find it in the images I had drawn because I had gone over it so many times. In the end my motivation to make anything of it, knowing I would only be able to make part of it anyway, went away completely so I decided to look for something new that would be more simple and just allow me to enjoy making it. I searched through a couple of poems and doodled ideas as I went until I settled on Daybreak by Bert Meyers.
Birds drip from the trees.
The moon's a little goat
over there on the hill;
dawn, as blue as her milk,
fills the sky's tin pail.
The air's so cold a gas station
glitters in an ice-cube.
The freeway hums like a pipe
when the water's on.
Streetlights turn off their dew.
The sun climbs down from a roof,
stops by a house and strikes
its long match on a wall,
takes out a ring of brass keys
and opens every door.
I really like the imagery of this poem, and how he describes things in ways that they aren't- like birds dripping from trees, streetlights with dew, and the anthropomorphised sun. As much as I'd like to build up the setting described I am most drawn to the last stanza and the character of the sun, so will be focusing on that so that I feel I have time to finish it. If I end up with more time than I thought I may add a shot of the birds dripping from the trees as I really like that line, but otherwise I will keep to the sun climbing down from the roof to light up the street.
These sketch pages are from when I first started to think about the character of the sun and how I would portray them, a lot of the initial explorations involved a sun-like head or a pointed ruff to represent the sun's rays. I also really liked the idea of using patterns on the clothing, as I could already see the poem working really well in stop-motion with lots of fun textures and proportions, so having clothing seemed a good idea. I then considered that the moon was referred to as a goat at the beginning of the poem, and realised to match that I could use another animal. As a goat's horns are like the crescent moon I figured that using a lion with his mane would work to be like the sun in a similar way.
I then developed this character more and began roughly storyboarding their actions to match with the poem.
I've really enjoyed playing about with what they could wear and what sort of doors they could be opening. I decided in the end that I'd like them to have a fabric body and clay head, with thread wrapped around their hands so that their hands are still moveable. This fabric body look is inspired by the work of Red Nose Studio, an illustrator and animator I've followed for a long time and love his work. All the faces he creates are really angular and often wonky in a really charming way, so I'm looking forward to making something inspired by his work.
I've collected fabrics from old clothing found in charity shops and played about with how they might look on my character, I knew I wanted something with a pattern, maybe geometric, and at first wanted a warmly coloured piece, but ended up thinking about how nice a blue piece would be. Here are some digital mock-ups I made to make a choice of fabric:
The two middle blue illustrations are just a version of the pattern beforehand but changed in photoshop, which is when I considered that using blue could look a lot nicer with the yellow of the face and tail. I then found the starry fabric which i feel like will work nicely with the concept. I also found a scrunchie in Oxfam that I thought could work as a sort of ruff if I wanted to add that.
I have begun the puppet making process and am really enjoying it, it's been a while since I've worked on something with my hands so much and it feels great! I am using aluminium wire for the body, craft wire for the hands, epoxy putty to strengthen the solid areas of the body, and put magnets in thee bottom of the feet to keep them secure.
I may need to make some changes to the animatic to make the movement I have to do easier to do when it comes to actually animating it but I think it conveys the narrative of the poem well enough at the moment.
The part where the match lights up the sky is inspired by this illustration by Serena Malyon.
I plan to make the backgrounds simple collages of photos I've taken of houses and rooftops. I want it to add to the slightly wonky feeling of the piece. I've made a small illustration of what this could look like in photoshop with one of my concept sketches of the sun sitting on one of the rooftops and I feel like it was successful.
I really want this project to come out well, with lots of texture and character, but I know that I've made a lot of problems for myself by changing in week 9 and choosing stop-motion on top of that. If I do not complete the puppet by Monday next week I will scrap the stop-motion and make it in 2D paper cut-outs instead as it will be quicker but keep the textures present.
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