Saturday, January 25, 2014

DRAGONS, MYLODONS, AND MOTHMEN

Here is my new updates on my creatures. Here is the dried skin:




















Since the skin is finished, I will use it almost immediatley. Every time a new skin is peeled, at least several creatures get skin off it. Here's my Brontosaurus, Mokele, with her skin on:














I'm not happy with the way the skin turned out. The texture is fine, but I didn't apply it right. One part of her leg was constricting the foam and peeling the foot upwards, forcing me to cut the skin open. I will simply paint the cut and malformed foot as a wound from an attacking dinosaur.



















This is my Proto-Dragon, now adorned with skin. I wrapped him up, ready to be painted. I will soon add wing membrane for his arms and wrap skin around his head.















Here's his head. It's designed so he can dislodge his jaw and shoot fire.















This is my Mylodon, a prehistoric ground sloth. He will be based on the old designs for ground sloths, such as a rudimentary trunk and tripod, godzilla-like stance. He is based off an old illustration in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel At the Earth's Core (I don't know who drew it, it was black and white, and looked vaugely like Frank Frazzetta's work. Do you know who drew it?) It shows the heroes of the novel being chased by a prehistoric ground sloth. It will take on the Proto-Dragon later in the movie.















At last, here's my creatures, Mokele, the Proto-Dragon, my Titanavis, and my Mothman, waiting to be painted. My Mothman is not part of the project, he was just sitting up on my shelf, unfinished. So, I'm painting him.

I hoped you enjoyed my post! Please comment.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

MAMMUT UPDATE

Mammut's construction is in full swing. I'm really happy how the neanderthal's city is turning out, Here's some details:















These are some wooden planks supporting the city. They are simply blunt toothpicks glued together.















Next up is the moss drooping off the city. It is simply vegetation mixed with lichen my grandma picks off trees.



















Next up is creating the wooden planks that cover the top platform. These are simply toothpicks. I'm glad it worked out.















This is a dummy created as a stand-in tio be eaten by a t-rex in the film. His head and hands were clay, while his clothes were fabric and cotton. His armature is a simple wooden figure that artists use to pose for drawing.

I hoped you enjoyed it!

FUR, FEATHERS, AND SCALES

Hello, Everybody!

I have been working further on my project, and Have currently worked on some models. Here's what I got:















This is Hemmingway, my smilodon. She has finally got fur on herself. Fortunately, my dad, who's a hunter, had some animal skins in the attic he got from some other hunters.


















I used some leather from a rabbit hide, and some fur of an unknown animal (I believe it was a fox). Poor animals.















This is my Titanavis, now complete and ready to be painted. I had a packet of fake feathers in an old storage box, so I used them to create my monster's feathers.















At last, here's my brontosaurus, Mokele. She's ready to have skin glued on. I create the leathered hides of my dinosaurs with liquid latex. My dad spreads out a tinfoil sheet, then crumples it, then unfolds it and crumples the edges (this is a trick I learned on the internet. Thank you whoever told me.) Then, my dad spreads vaseline over the sheet, then pours liquid latex over it. It dries over a few days, and it turns tan.















The latex dries, but doesn't fuse into the tinfoil due to the vaseline. Then, I peel it off and dry it.















Then, I glue it on my dinosaurs and paint it. (WARNING! Liquid latex contains ammonia, so you can't tough it or sniff it until it is dry).

I hoped you liked it.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

THE TERRIBLE BEAST OF HUEVALMAN'S SQUARE

This is unrelated to my movie, this is just a short story I wrote for a creepy victorian era short story competition. Enjoy!


THE TERRIBLE BEAST OF HUEVELMAN’S SQUARE

Kelston Hubler

I desperately hope I am simply a madman. Nothing more than a complete lunatic rambling on in a musty concrete room in the psychiatric ward. Yes, a sane, reasonable man like me has been driven to begging for the greatest dream of pure nonsense. If anyone aside from me is reading this, a story even I won't read, I am probably dead, or being laughed at as I ramble insane nonsense behind a thick concrete wall. Here is the story, as it was, up to now.

I lived in London, in 1857. It's a musty town, with people and horses strolling up and down the muddy wet concrete roads, surrounded on all sides by crumbling brick facades crammed with crying families and starving workers. The crammed alleyways hide gypsies and circus travelers intent on selling you chicken heads and voodoo nonsense, as well as deranged serial killers who prowl the foggy night alleys, looking for women to decapitate for their own sick pleasure, immortalized in the Penny Dreadfuls you can occasionally buy if your boss gives you a raise. It's a crowded, murky, industrialized town, but no one cares, just going about their everyday business like ants in the dirt. I live on the third apartment in a crowded brick complex simply known as "the brick house", on Huevalmans square. The building sits on the corner of a crossway, with endless streams of traffic noisily bumping into each other the entire cloudy day, until night, when the fog sets in and everybody flees the streets to avoid murderers. I came from a small moor side farm near Exmoor. My uncle invited me to live in the city as his secretary for his small boat making industry he does as the docks. One day, I watched from my musty window, looking down at the dimming streets. The people began to drain into houses, the horsemen driving as far away from the streets as possible. The gypsies and circus men slid into empty wooden crates in the alley. Then the fog set in. Everything below my apartment was gray clouds, seeping through the streets, like that octopus in those cartoons my mother sends me from America. She finds political cartoons funny. I look on, staring at the tin shack roofs, when I saw it. At first, I assumed it was a man, rising above the flat tops of an apartment complex. Then, I noticed it was much bigger. It looked much like a lizard, if a lizard was as big as two burly Irishmen. It had a long snout and a triangular flat head. It opened it's jaws, making an ear-splitting howl. It suddenly ran towards my complex, and jumped off the building. I reeled in shock as it disappeared into the fog. For two minutes, nothing happened. I soaked in what I just saw, and how impossible it was. Was it some sort of phantasm? Then it's foot hit the window. I fell back, being caught by a wooden chair. It's foot was like a cat, if the cat's skin was grey and the cat was shaved. The creature's head reared up into the window, hissing. It's solid black eyes were broken by red slits, staring at me. Looking deeper into them, I swear I saw that the slits were cracks in the gates of hell, oozing blood-colored fire and blasphemous demons of latin grimoires. It's right paw rose up to the window, banging it violently. The glass began to crack. The creature was like a ghost of a prehistoric beast from hell! I began to lose it. In the back of my mind, long lost memories of man's ancestry of worshiping and fearing primal demons and gods flooded into my modern brain. I rapidly shot my hand into the desk, yanking out a chalk, and I began to scribble ancient, cursed symbols written by the high priests of the celtics and Egyptians, muttering ancient profanities that would make a church priest faint. The ancient demon stopped banging. In my ritualistic trance, I forced my eyes to look up at the horrifying beast in the window. It's scaly lips moved like writhing animals on the operating table of a mad doctor, emitting ancient Egyptian curses in a booming voice. It jumped off the window, vanishing into the fog. My body stopped giving me back control. I ran to. The window. The creature was gone. I sat back in relief, thinking it must have been a hallucination, until I heard a man's scream. The creature jumped up onto the opposite building, a screaming man in it's jaws, confirming any hope I had of sanity. Then it jumped back into the fog, disappearing.

I didn't sleep that night. I was too busy huddling in my protective pagan symbols on the wooden floor, shivering in fear, looking at the window to wait for the monster's next move. It never did. The next day I read of a man disappearing, with a picture matching the man in the monster's jaws. That day, I started my search to find out what I saw. I was no longer rational, I was like a wide eyed child, listening to every gypsy in the alley way I interviewed, every Cultist in the sewers, believing everything they said. I always retreated to the safety of my apartment every night, boarding up the window with planks from my uncle's factory, hiding under my bed. Every night there was knocking, for exactly one minute, then it stopped. The cultists and gypsies said the monster was Grakkyth, a monster from another world. They said the smog was angering the gods, and the smog was used as a river of sorts by demons like Grakkyth, swimming from their world to ours. Then, one day, passing a park, I saw an enormous statue of a giant lizard, which looked exactly like Grakkyth! The creator of the statues said they were animals from the Stone Age, long before man. Could Grakkyth be a descendant of one of these beasts? I would occasionally gather strength to peel back the boards, to find out what was knocking. I would see the animal slithering over the rooftops like a snake, even though it clearly had legs. When the beast slithered close to me, the board would force itself shut, unable to be peeled up for days.

As a write, my fear has driven me home, after a whole month of this hell. I have reeled in horror to find the pagan symbols protecting me had been swept away by the manager! The fog is setting in, and I'm trapped. I rush for the door, but it's locked itself. Oh god. I cannot find any chalk or drawing utensils in the drawer. No, my hands are bleeding! The board, it's peeling away like paper, crumbling to dust. The glass is broken! IT'S INSI-

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.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

New monsters

Here's a look at some new monsters for the film I've made recently:
















This is my Titanavis, a kind of prehistoric bird. Most of his feathers and beak are missing, but I'm happy with him for now. I wanted a simple menacing creature, another prehistoric creature to add some flavor. Unlike other Terror birds, Titanavis actually had claws, like a dinosaur. His big toes are unused clay toes for O'bie, and his feather were from another, older project.


















This mysterious creature is my Proto-Dragon.  Unlike my other creatures, I had no armature to use, until my Mom gave me Tuber and Zots fpor my birthday. They are perfect for making tentacles, tails, necks, and snakes! For his teeth, I wanted to give him a crocodilian look. He will menace our heroes by breathing fire.















This is my mole creature. He is a cross between a megatheirium and a star-nose mole, another pseudo-prehistoric beast to do battle with the proto-dragon. He is a simple armature at the moment, but soon he will be on the move.

I hoped you enjoyed my post!

MAMMUT IS RISING...

Behold, the spectacular empire of Mammut, home of the Neanderthals, in MUCH TO FEAR ABOUT SUMMER. In the story, the Neanderthals (a species of prehistoric human with a large lower jaw and a portruding brow) escape attacking dinosaurs by suspending their city in the air, on wooden pillars and trees. Here is it, in basic form:

















The upper half of the set is a wooden sheet cut out by my dad. It was originally a set for a King-Kong-like monster movie I planned long ago, DOUGHNUT ISLAND, where a paper Pterodactyl god roamed, but the movie was never made, and the wooden island sat there for years on end, until I made it the top half of my village. I plan to cover the whole top in toothpicks, so it looks like planks of wood.
















This is my giant birch tree that will support the village. I planned all the wooden pillars to be trees, but I didn't have enough paper to make trunks. My new idea is that Mammut started being built around the tree, but as it got bigger, they made giant pillars out of nearby trees to help support it. Another changed idea is that when Ray attacks it in the end, he was going to break the birch tree and cause the village to topple, so he gan get at the neanderthals. However, the wire mesh armature insifde the tree is under too muxcch pressure, so I may just have Ray attack the village. The "peeling" look was created by wrapping black paper around thw wire armature, then taking a white sheet, ripping holes in it, then wrap it around the black paper.















This is the wire armature for the top of the birch tree, exploding through the wooden platform. I plan to put a wooden shack inside it, for my saber-tooth Hemmingway to live.
















This is my statue that will be put in the city. He's a Sirrush, a dragon from Sumerian mythology. For those of you who don't know, the Sirrush is a monster depicted on the Ishtar Gates of Babylon. The monster is believed to be based off of traveler's sightings of living dinosaurs. The creature is depicted here as a religous figure, a guardian. He's made of sculpey clay, ready to be baked.

Also, in other news, here's what my dinosaur thinks of the new background:
















IT'S GREENSCREEN TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, January 5, 2014

So, you want to be a stop motion animator?

Stop motion animation is a technique that has been in the movie buissness for a century. Nobody knows who invented it, but the basics are the same: moving a model on a set between one frame at a time, and it will simulate movement. The technique has been used everywhere, from children's cartoons to special effects, from advertisements to lego films. Whether you want to make a dinosaur, a clay dog, a singing raisin or a lego man, stop motion can make it move. And, unlike CGI, you don't need tons of software to make your vision come to life. Anyone, with a camera and a computer program can do it. Currently, I'm just going to cover how to make characters, like monsters or dinosaurs, as opposed to lego films or cartoons. Here's how:

First, you need some sort of program that does stop motion, and a camera. For early reels, a strongly suggest expeirimenting with plasticine first. Plasticine is a special clay that doesn't dry, so you can make simple films with it (however, it is advised to keep it in cool temperatures, plasticine melts in heat.) Try making simple characters or balls of clay that come to life, grow limbs and walk away. Don't try stories yet until you're sure you can achieve it. You can even make eyes with sculpey clay, a bakeable clay. I don't suggest using it for teeth or claws, unless you're sure you can achieve it. for eyes, make simple balls of sculpey clay, bake them, embed them into the clay character, and put a beady clay dot for a pupil on the eye. When the character moves his eye, simply move the pupil. In this stage, try making sets with wood floors, painted backdrops and fake vegatation. This stage teaches you patience, sculpting skills, and the ability to move something an centimeter at a time.

Second, if you're confident in you're sculpting and animating skills, you can build a model. Models are more complex and expensive to make than clay characters, but more rewarding. Model characters are used more for monster movies, like King Kong or The Beast from 20,000 fathoms, or cartoon characters. Unlike clay characters, models will stay rigid until you move it, and can walk. First, you start with the armature, a metal skeleton that hold up your creature. For this stage, use certain kinds of unbreakable wire, or erector set pieces with lock-nuts for joints. For wire joints, coat certain areas in expoxxy putty or glue  for parts you don't want to move, like an actual skeleton. For a character, I suggest making wire arms, tails, and necks, for wire, while hard to move, is more free then joints. Make the legs joints. Tighten the lock-nuts on the joints, so wile it can hold up the body, it can still move. For the feet, cut off plumber's tape and glue it to the feet, so one hole sticks out to the side of the foot. Do not cover that hole at any cost.

Third, glue air conditioning foam over the armature, then carving it into the shape of your creature with scissors. Add sculpey eyes, teeth, and claws.

Then, spread out a sheet of tinfoil, and coat it with a thick layer of vaseline. Then, pour liquid latex over the tinfoil (BEWARE! Liquid latex contains ammonia when in liquid form! Do not touch or sniff!) Put the latex in room temperature. When it's dry in a couple of days, it will turn tan. That's w3hen you know it's dry, and safe to touch and sniff. Peel the latex off, and wipe off the vaseline. Then, proceed to glue and wrap the non-vaseline side over the model, gluing, cutting, and wrapping it. Cut holes in the skin for your creature's eyes.  Now, your model has skin. Then paint it with accrylics and you're done.

At last, take a table, and drill holes through it. That way, you can bolt your creature down to the table, through the holes in it's feet, then remove them when it lifts a foot. This keeps your creature standing. Put a backdrop behind him and you're done. You can animate.

NOTE: Do not expect the model to be perfect. It took me three years to make a creature like Ray, and my first working puppett, O'bie, I worked on for a year and he still can't move well. Don't worry, once you can make a good model, you will soon be cranking out creatures every week. Keep fixing and revising, and visiting other websites for more advice, and you will get it. Just don't get frustrated, don't get mad, and keep working, and you will become a great stop motion animator.

SNEAK PEAK

Here's a glimpse of my upcoming project, MUCH TO FEAR ABOUT SUMMER. It's based on a short story I wrote, inspired by the writings of Ray Bradbury and Edgar rice Burroughs. It's about a man, when caught in a particle accelerator accident, awakens in a mysterious dimension where dinosaurs and cavemen thrive, and all people fear summer. Here's a glimpse at some of my puppetts for the project:















This my dinosaur puppett, Ray. He was created out of parts of erector sets, liquid latex, wire, air conditioning foam, and sculpey. He can move almost every part of his body, and will have a major role in the film.















This is Ray on the animation table with my older dinosaur puppett, O'bie. O'bie is a personal favorite of minre due to the fact he was my first successful stop motion model.















Here's O'bie up close. He went through many repaints and revisions in his life as a stop motion model, and I learned a lot making him him.
















This is my unfinished Saber-toothed tiger, Hemmingway. It will be quite some time before I can get some fur to put on her, so se will only have a minor role in the film. I'm still quite impressed with her, though.
















This is my swamp man, Harold, and my pterodactyl, Charlie. Harold was made with a simple wire armature with a plumber's tape head and feet, with a plasticine face. His fur is fake vegatation and sticks glued over latex and fabric skin. Charlie also has a wire armature, with an upper jaw made of sculpey and teeth made of toothpicks. He was painted with accrylic paint and has latex skin. Both were made for an unfinished film about Cryptids, legendary creatures from across the planet. (Harold would be the Honey Island swamp monster and Charlie would be the Duah).  Here they are post-animation, hanging out.















This is my pterodactyl, Edgar. He has a minor role as an O'bie Bird (In King Kong, Willis O'brien would animate tiny birds that flied across the screen on wires while the dinosaurs and King Kong duke it out). He is a dimorphodon, a tiny pterodactyl that scavenged and hunted insects. I'm really glad how he turned out.
















These are some models that will have roles in the film. My Brontosaurus, Mokele, and my Stegosaurus, Patrick. Next to them is one of my dinosaur toys and a stop motion monster for one of my unfinished films, MU. He is a kaiju (Japanese for "giant monster", like Godzilla). He's based on the Japanese folk monster Namazu, a giant catfish that causes earthquakes.

Well, that's all I'll show you for now. I hoped you enjoyed it.