Sunday, January 19, 2014

MY LIFE AS A STOP-MOTION ANIMATOR, PART 2

Eventually, after all my clay expierments, I realized that clay wasn't exactly the best animation method.
It would melt in heat, it couldn't walk properly, and it wasn't permamnent. So, I began to research how the professionals like Ray Harryhausen or Willis O'brien make models. Unfortunately, while the instructions were online, they seemed way too hard and dangerous for me to try, so I decided to try to make it my own way. After much trial and error, I finally created my first stop motion model, a tyrannosaurus named patchy. He was incredibly crude, with a bionicle armature, model magic flesh and fabric skin. Patchy had to go through tons of revisions, often tearing out whole limbs and replacing them. Patchy got his name from his skin, crudely stitched together fabric.















I put him through many tests, realizing that the way he was made wouldn't allow him to do stop motion for too long. His plastic joints were wearing, causing his heavy body to lean forward, and his feet had no holes to bolt him down to the board. So, I had to put him in storage, and work for a better design...















Next up was Malcolm, my Utahraptor. Completely abandoning fabric, I coated a bionicle armature with a kind of clay I bought on amazon that was supposed to be flexible when dry. Sadly, it didn't work, so even though Malcolm had a great design, he can barely move without cracking. At last, I knew I had to resort to the old fashioned way. Using every bit of knowledge I had on the subject, a box of erector set parts, and a constant stream of liquid latex and air conditioning foam from amnazon, I created O'bie, who, to my relief, worked perfectly fine.

Today, my craft is much more advanced, but I'm glad I still have these models in my possession.

1 comment:

  1. Your process of learning how to make your model creatures is very interesting!

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