Pants pants pants

Let's see, reroofed a bit, painted a room, took the kids swimming in pools ponds and rivers. Finally got around to sewing some pants, painted all the noses, and shoes. Skinned all the humans, and painted them (acrylic on top of masking tape on top of newspaper, will it work or will it crack?) Finally did a final dip on kong's hands. And sewed some pants for him, they fit better than I expected, but now I'm looking at them and realizing they're gonna boil and jitter all over. Oh well, good enough. (I did maybe 4 paper pants versions before I got to fabric.) The foam of his body has come off a bit, so now I'm using hot glue to reattach instead of the original spray adhesive, I'm betting I do some tailoring with hot glue as well. Oh, also been writing out the dope sheet, the music is acapella so it seems like they mixed up the rhythm some. I tried to use Beatronome but the rhythm was to varied, so grinding through it in a 3d package because I'm familiar with that, and writing it by hand. Hilariously I thought I'd be done with this project by March (I don't now why, I thought low standards would speed it up, I'm not even really sure why it's taken this long.) What's keeping me moving is that the year is half over, and it's definitely not a project worth letting drag on into a 2nd year. What's left: shirt and then jacket for kong, figure out a floor for drilling tiedown holes, figure out lights, and sets. Hopefully animation isn't too far away, but clearly I'm terrible at estimating time. Definitely if I do something again I'll find a way to just sculpt it and mold the whole thing. (I was thinking silicone maybe, no oven).

Azul

Distance

 what a great example of using animation to express things visually. And what cool colors.

Clockwork Creatures

Some people are making a living making fancy fursuits. Really reaching fx costume level. Seems like they do a face mold out of plaster bandages, then sculpt on top of that and cast that in resin. The eyes are taxidermy. And the human looks out through the tear duct. They glue the fur down with a glue gun, but then actual trim and style it.  Use aclyone to build some cool wings like this .

Automaton software

this is cool, just imagine what cool real world props you could make
or bicycle monsters



Disney came up with it

 

found a version https://mechse.illinois.edu/news/blogs/creating-mechanically-animated-character

Lamborghini Bosozoku

anime is real

great cinematics

Shinjuku

some cool style by Robert Valley

Keith Lango with Kenny Roy

 Kenny Roy did an interview with Keith Lango

here's notes I took

there's a collection of elements that make storytelling impactful.

film is not an intellectual medium, if you want to get across a thought, the written word is much  more nuanced gives you more power to get an idea across

film is an emotional medium, so things that are emotionally affective will have a bigger impact

the myth is that humans are rational beings, we gather information and make the best analytical choice. In truth we do that afterwards to justify our choices.

19:41

Studies have shown that we make our decisions on an emtional relational level, so low it's non verbal. The biggest thing that impacts our emotions is a sense of relation.

So if you apply that lense to storytelling, then character, relationship, and emotion are the big chips for affecting the consumer. Everything else is a tactical choice.

So thinking strategically what's gonna bring the biggest punch? hi fideltiy in animation or modeling or rendering?

Audiences are striving for coherence, they want to learn the rules (visual rules) of your world and for you to stick to them.

You can have very low rules like southpark, and stick to them, and people will be happy to go along for the ride.

So if you approach directing with this in mind you can step back and think, where can I use less, put my resources where it will matter more.

truck driver thinking "if a little gravy is good a lot of gravy must be better" but in truth sometimes a little less gravy is excellent

On directing:
I would give my shot handoffs with these
parameters of success;
what they're feeling, what they need to feel, what changes need to happen (open a door), and energy level (level 2 to level 6, irritated to angry)

and then leave it the animator to solve it however they need. So this opened up to ideas I would have never thought of, it gets the animator invested, it brings better than my own stuff, and any notes I give is not trying to make them match the scene in my head, but to help them make their scene better achieve its needs

The Ningyo

Pretty awesome kickstarter
a pair of vfx artists working on their own time and money (and house) and making cool stuff.




their test project to see if they could do it on their own (in their house)

The Green Ruby Pumpkin from miguel ortega on Vimeo.

The Making of The Green Ruby Pumpkin from miguel ortega on Vimeo.

Little Witch Academia

 I've been interested in 2d effects animation lately, This cute little anime has a ton

Beaten Roadblock

I was stuck for a while. Mainly I think because it's summer and it's taking forever for my 5 year old to get to sleep. 

But also I started laying things out too far, setting it all up to knock it all down at once. Namely I had been latexing Kongs fingers, and got to the point where I want to dip the whole hand-but I don't have a lot of latex so it made sense to be ready to dip the humans at the same time-but when I started making them they were super ugly.

I took them into photoshop and figured out that their heads were too tiny and their eyes to high up. (hard to see with this angle but left human is old version, middle human is new version) Then I baked a human because I was worried that my clever plan of using sculpy as bones may not work, and hey, it didn't (the pieces are spinning on the wire.) So maybe the latex would hold them in place, but then I did a test with my old standby, masking tape and newspaper (rightest humanoid leg). It's dumb looking, but not really any worse then the rest of the project, and may have the added benifit of working as clothing as well (just paint or marker it to the new look) (cuz the plan is to start the humans out as dancing girls, then switch their paint and use them as cops and military). It also worked for the joint (middle humans hip joint).

I'm excited. Have all 5 humans heads on, they're baking right now (that was another block, didn't want to bake while the kids are awake and inhaling fumes (it's only sculpy, but still)) I have no hesitation about slapping some masking tape around so I should lay them out next time I get to the project. It's kind of making me wish I'd done Kong with masking tape too. (it's so simple that I don't have any worries about it being right, it gets gold star for good enough). Hopefully human eyes are gonna work out, they're actually little brads I had laying around, the baked test guy I took them out to bake, but they didn't go back in, so the rest of the humans I left the eyes in to bake. The plan was to swap out eyes, so I could have eyes open, eyes closed, and half lidded. Bead eyes. (also a Jon trick). We'll see if they are removable once baked.

As you can see, Kong's still been hanging out at the paper tailor. But I think I've got it worked out good enough to hit it with cloth. I'm thinking the gluegun may be involved as much as the needle and thread.

That's the mantra of the whole project. I haven't animated very much in stopmotion, so it's probably not going to look that great movement wise, so why bother slaving over everything if it's just gonna move clunky. Good enough is the goal, so I can get to animating, so I can have a purpose to animate instead of random tests, so I can work off my rough edges and actually do a good job on the next project. Cult of done.

Also I've been messing with poi spinning, and am currently plotting out a 1 page comic as a creative challenge. Really hoping I actually tie the Kong project up this year, it's not good enough to stretch longer than that.

Boxtrolls

I can't stop watching the boxtrolls trailer, the spacing on the arcs is mega delicious of the jumping and falling and manhole cover.