Gobelins

A-ha! Stumbled on the Gobelins gallery. These guys are always good and interesting.

blinks

Asofiker posted these over at 11sec club It's fascinating how synchronized the blinking is, almost perfectly. Why? How are blinks tied to thoughts, and if it's this universal what's the neurological rule so that we can put blinks in psychologically correctly in our animations? *Ah, never mind. Kevin Koch says the blinks were synched in post (which makes sense, it would make you sick otherwise) that we generally blink around the same point in dialogue but not as exact as this.

My first stop mo

So finally found a smidge of time to try stop motion. Lot's of fun. Fun challenge to do it all in one go, keeping in mind where all the pieces are coming from and going to at what speed, instead of having the crutch of being able to come back and do follow through and overlap in passes. Of course my armature broke near the end (right about at the 3 second mark), so it gets wonky, had to quickly get some kind of end in there. (The plumbers epoxy stopped holding the arm and hip joints still, those joints were seperate pieces that went across like on a "t", the next armature I'm slapping together I'm going around with a single long length of wire.) Anyway I gotta try it again, and apparently get a better camera then my web cam, just have to find the time.

(I'm really just posting this so I can post in the Stopmo forum cuz Lio doesn't like lurkers)

11sec October crit

Oct crit with Brian Mendenhall.

it's hard not to pack Everything into a shot to show off all your animation skills, but it's good to hold back sometimes for the scene, if it's a subtle scene have the guts to play it quiet.

the reason to put variety in the fingers is that you want to bring out the 3 dimensionality of it, which is why you don't let the fingers all line up in a row perfectly.

believable contacts bring the scene to the upper level of suspension of disbelief. A hand touching offset the fingers contacting, and don't be afraid to reverse fingers because fingers reverse themselves all the time.

Always make the face assymetrical, even if it's really really subtle.

less is more in head acting. don't hit every word with a head accent, choose the strongest word, the operative word, and after that then you can pepper in some more smaller accents, but that way you can easily stop before it gets to much. Always good to break up repition, the line is "on and on" it would be more interesting if it wasn't a vertical nod both times, but the second was a different direction might make it more interesting.

You want to feel like there is something happening, some accent on the strongest sound/word.

Usually expressions change pretty quickly. So can't just key the brows 20 frames apart and let the computer slide them.

The first thing you have to worry about is clarity, make sure that what you want the character to feel is clear.

It often feels like a pop if the head hits a pose and a frame later it's pixel for pixel in the same spot.

Stop Mo Puppet latex heads

Great post over at the Stop Motion Animation Forum. Basically Nick Helligoss is awesome as usual.

Anyway, I have come across that the easiest and cheapest way to get going with semi decent stop mo puppets is make a wire armature (with plumbers epoxy for shoulder and hip reinforcement), then cover it in foam from our sofa (furniture foam). The head and hands can be done with liquid latex brushed on, you can get liquid latex at art shops.

This thread talks about

"Hollow slush cast" - that's where you make a plaster mould, pour in liquid latex and leave it stand for a while, then pour the latex back in the jar. The plaster mould absorbs water from the latex, so a layer next to the plaster starts to get thicker and is left behind when you pour the latex off. The longer you leave it the thicker it builds up. After it dries you have a hollow skin. Dust the inside with talc, peel it out, and you have a hollow puppet head. I used this for hand puppets, where I put my fingers in the upper lip and thumb in the chin and operated them like Muppets. I made the mouth open so I could squeeze it closed, but it would spring back to open.

For foam heads I sculpt the mouth barely open, because it creases in a weird way when you close the mouth a lot more than it's original position. But the foam can usually stretch open more.

Yes, you need a head armature with wires for the upper and lower jaw, and also for anything else that moves like eyebrows or animal ears. They have to attach to a block in the middle, and you need neck wires to connect to the body. You have to make sure the wires will sit in the right place in the plaster mould.