Ad 207

AD 207

12th-18th October.

This was the first week of our new brief. For this project we had to turn our characters into stop motion puppets. They had to look like our characters and be fully moveable. To help visualise what our model will look like and to improve our armature building skills we were advised to make a maquette using wire and plasticine before making our final model. We used our model sheets to work out size and scale. I also started to build up my research file this week, by looking at various different stop-motion characters and how they were put together. For this project I wanted to improve on my research file as I feel I didn't include enough content last time round and it wasn't organised very well.

19th-25th October

I worked on finishing my maquette this week, I had already made my wire armature and started fleshing it out using plastacine. Because plastacine is coloured I was able to match my maquette to the colours of my model sheet. I found it difficult to get any detail using the plastacine as it was too soft. Here is the making of:

26th-1st November

I continued with my research at the start of the week to help inform me on how to finish my model. I had already decided to make the armature out of wire, and to pad out the main part of it with wadding, I had to choose how to finish the arms and head as they were the only parts not covered by clothes. I decided to paint on layers of latex over the wadding bound arms. I chose this method because it allowed the arms to move freely and had a realistic finish to it. I started making the wire armature using the thicker wire to make the body, and the thinner wire to bind it together hopefully improving its durability. I found it very difficult to make the fingers as the kept snapping, eventually I managed by using a different wire. I also added poly morph to the armature, this restricted the movement of the wire, making the movement of it more real. I also made my models head, I used sculpty which is a type of modelling clay that hardens when baked in an oven. I scrunched up a ball of tin foil and covered it in scuply and moulded Zeus's features. I used tin foil so the head wouldn't be sculpty all the way through, this helped keep the weight to a minimum. I left a gap in the beard so I could fill it with white plastacine, this will allow me to create a mouth that can be changed with ease. I will also use plastacine to make the hair and eyebrow as I want this to be animated.

2nd-8th November

I continued with the construction of my model this week, I started binding wadding from an old pillow to my armature. I started with the body then worked on to the limbs and finally the fingers. I tried to get the bound wadding on the arms and fingers as flat as possible so the arm will look more smooth once the layers of latex have been added. After i was happy with the wadding I started painting on the layers of latex, it took about 3 hours for each layer to completely dry.

9th-15th November

This was the week of our hand in, I had to finish off my model and complete my research to a higher standard than in the last project. I continued to paint layers of latex on the arms of my model so they would smooth out more. I then started to make some trousers for the model, but as I was putting them on the leg snapped, I decided to take the wadding off and try and fix it but the other leg was close to snapping off as well,so I had to start again. I made a new armature, this time using a thicker wire and using the other two sizes to bind it together. I kept the poly morph from my last model and re-used it and started to bind my model and finally start to paint the latex on. It took me most of the day to get this far but at least I was now in the same position as before.

I then made his clothes out of two old t-shirts I made two halves for his t-shirt and for the trousers and sewed them up. I added two back pockets for his trousers and a belt to increase the detail, I also added a yellow lightening bolt on his t-shirt. Once my model was finished I had to finish off my research file by printing off all my pages and putting them into a folder.

Overall I enjoyed this project, as I found making my model very rewarding. I feel I have improved on my research this time around, however I feel my strengths lie in the practical side of it as i find it more interesting and rewarding. I still need to improve on my research though and that is my target again for the next project. Here is my finished model: