WHERE I'VE BEEN....

Hello, the, like five people who read my blog!

You may have noticed I've been silent for about two months now.I had lots of stuff to do, not to mention a trip to Maui. Cool place, has great green screen backdrops. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, Antediluvian is still in production and has one shot and a couple narrations left to complete. The bad news, my earlier project, Much to Fear about summer, has been scrapped for now. It was a great idea, and I applaud my script writer for making a fantastic script, but I don't have the time or resources to make it. Even worse, the computer had a data overload, and the completed animation was one of the unfinished projects I had to sacrifice to save Antediluvian. Still, surviving footage will be reused, many of the puppets made for the film are under use by Antediluvian, and I still have the script. Maybe another time...

Anyway, onto Antediluvian. I only have two shots left, of a character in makeup. His role is undisclosed, but he needed a bat-like nose. I have never tried makeup before. I knew how to do it, but wasn't exactly sure. Originally, I was going to use a foam prosthetic for the nose dipped in latex, but it didn't look real and didn't fit. So, quickly, I had to develop a latex prosthetic...

Recently, I bought some Monster Clay off Amazon, a high-grade casting clay. Before, most characters with high detailed faces had to have plasticine faces. I was experimenting with this stuff, and learning from several casting videos, I decided to try it.

I sculpted the nose piece, and built a wall of crude plasticine out of it, made from old plasticine models.

Then, I poured a crude grade plaster of Paris inside. It dried in a couple hours, then I peeled away the wall to get the cast.

This part I was worried about the most, considering this wasn't the strongest plaster, but I peeled away the clay and got a perfect cast. Finally, I painted the latex, let it bake in the summer heat, and peel off the prosthetic.

Not a work of art, but still proud of it!

However, I still have some troubles. The schedule for makeup and attaching the beard and nosepiece is still up for debate, not to mention the troubles of removing spirit gum. Fortunately, I have more than one film on my plate, which I will talk about in my next post...

Hope you enjoyed it. Please comment.

Kelston Hubler.

UNEARTHING ANTEDILUVIAN

I'm happy to say most of the animation in "much to fear about summer" is complete, but I still have to cast actors and shoot the film this summer. So, what film do I make in the mean time? Well, I recently regained my love for Hollow Earth stories, so, prepare for a new short film, ANTEDILUVIAN.

ANTEDILUVIAN is based off the myth of the hollow earth, in which the world is hollow, and prehistoric life and advanced civilizations live there. Antediluvian is inspired by these tales. Although the world is not at the center of the earth, it is an entire a network of caves beneath a mountain. It's inspired heavily by the works of Jules Verne, whose book was so cool, I almost made a movie out of it once, my first true stop motion epic, who I'm certain that my pipe-cleaner plesiosaurs and Icthyosaurs are still lurking in my closet somewhere. Of course, I'm not going to make new puppets for the project, I'll just use ones I've made already. However, I did make one puppet for the project: the antediluvian gorilla:

This creature has an interesting backstory. In Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, there's a mysterious chapter only included in certain editions of the book. It describes a dream sequence about a fight between a prehistoric ape and some sort of dinosaur. This is insanely weird, because:

1. This mirrors King Kong, but I've read books about the subject, and Verne's novel was never mentioned.

2. The creature is supposed to be a prehistoric gorilla, but no prehistoric gorillas were discovered at the time Verne wrote his novel. Perhaps, as David Standish suggested in his book HOLLOW EARTH, the ape is a representation of Verne's opinions on Progressive Creationism (God slowly changing creatures from one species to another to fit his plan), the ape regressing over the generations from it's prehistoric ancestors for new creatures to emerge.

So, he mystery of the Antediluvian Gorilla continues. The prehistoric gorilla in my movie was made from wire, foam, and black wool. The pictures above show his his face, restored with clay after it was all but destroyed during the animation process. The gorilla, Verne, will battle Harold, my swamp ape, as a sort of battle of the missing links, a tribute to king kong animators willis O'brien and Marcel Delgado.















There will also be a boneyard and mammoths, another reference to the story. The sets were simple green screen composites with plastic dinosaur bones and clay mushrooms. The mammoth, who sadly was torn apart before I could get a picture of him, is a mammoth skull with clay and wool wrapped around it.

Also, Ray is returning for the picture.
















Speaking of Ray, here's some test footage for Much to Fear about summer.
















When it's finished, I might even make a sequel. It's a fun little story with various references to Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burrough's Pelucidar.

Please Comment. Hope you Enjoyed it!

THE RISE OF HIBERNIA

My scriptwriter has a fantastic imagination, so he gave the name for a new l,ovation in my movie: Hibernia, where dinosaurs hibernate. It's a big cavern, with a prehistoric wall, like King Kong, around it. Thanks to Green screen, there's no need to make the full set. I just take pictures of the wall:

Then post them behind the gate, where Ray eerily crawls out:

The gate and Walls were made with project bricks, something I luckily found searching for Hot glue in Joann's. They're tiny bricks you can use to create the illusion of large stone bricks, like on the pyramids. I even used them on Mammut, for my Pop-sickle stick fort:















I also used the green screen to make Edgar look like he's flying:















I hope you enjoyed it. Please comment.

FINISHED CREATURES

Hello, everybody! Here are my finished creatures:

This is my Mothman, based off a cryptid from point Pleasant, West Virginia. He's not for the project, I just already finished my Flatwoods Monster, and decided to finish my mothman, too. I may add the membrane to his wings later.

This is my Proto-Dragon, Fafnir. I'm seriously glad with how he turned out. He will shoot fire later on, but that's another story. He will attack a human village in my story for reasons undisclosed...

He was made through a Tubers and Zots coated in wire and latex, with the head strapped on. He will help reveal a serious menace in the film.

Here's Hemmingway! The rabbit fur worked well, as my saber-toothed tiger is finally complete and ready for filming! Her whiskers were actually rabbit whiskers. Her legs aren't very good, but she will only have a small role in the film, and her head's fantastic, so I'm happy with her.

This is Mokele, my Brontosaurus. I'm not exactly happy with the way she turned out (my fault, I rushed), but again, she only has a small role, and her animation is okay.

Ironically, the one I expected to be the worst turned out looking the best. My titanavis, Tweety, looks incredible, and the paint job hides the faulty manufacturing of his crude armature. I'm happy he turned out so well, too bad his role is to essentially be Ray's appetizer.

Here's my Mylodon, finished and ready for painting. I'm not sure about him, he was sort of rushed and he looks crude, but his armature works well, and he should be a good new addition to the team.

Well, that's all my current creatures. See ya!

My tribute to Ray Harryhausen

I know it's a tad late, but here's my tribute to Ray Harryhausen, who passed away last year at 92. He was very influential on my career, so here's my tribute.

While I was a huge fan of dinosaurs, I never really knew who Ray was. Frankly, I wasn't sure there really were too many dinosaur films out there. I recently came into a fascination with Greek Myth, so mom rented Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts on Netflix. Coming from an era of CGI, I was a tad jaded, but, frankly, his creatures Medusa and Talos were some of the few monsters to ever scare me. They didn't even need to explode out of a doorway, screaming at the top of their lungs, the sheer mood and movement of the creatures genuinely creeped me out. This is coming from a kid who forced his Grandma to play Jurassic Park 3 every Friday, a film where Velociraptors pin down mercenaries and split open their skulls with their claws. A few years later, after a bit of research on the subject, I came across Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger on television. The death of Trog and the Saber-Toothed Tiger affected me more than any monsters death, even more than the original Godzilla.

Well, I didn't hear much about him until my old teacher put on a video on about him. I think that's when I was certain I wanted to make stop motion dinosaurs and animate them. I already had a stop motion program I got years before, but that video made me certain about what I wanted
 to do. I went through many trials and tribulations, from baked sculpey creatures, to pipe cleaner plesiosaurs, to plasticine Godzillas, to Patchy, to Malcolm, to O'bie, to Ray (get it?) . I eventually was able to buy the Beast from 20,000 fathoms, a beautiful movie with a fantastic monster, a combination of Ray Bradbury's short story and Ray Harryhausen's concepts. I also was able to record a strain of Harryhausen movies, and git to watch 20 million miles to Earth, First Men in the moon, and Earth vs the Flying Saucers. It was awesome.

When one of my teachers who also loved his work broke the news, it was terribly sad. But I'm happy to know that people still care about his craft and continue it to this day. Richard Svensson's working on his Lovecraft Projects, Phil Tippet's making MAD GOD,  ML Tharme is working on Wildlife on Mars, Peter Jackson recreated the Spider Pit sequence from the original KING KONG, and I'm working on MUCH TO FEAR ABOUT SUMMER.

His work inspired all of us. Thank you, Ray Harryhausen.

SCRIPT NEARLY COMPLETE!

A friend of mine is working on the script, and it's nearly complete! Once done, I can start filming!

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.

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.