Ignite Teaser

Teaser for my film, Ignite! The full 2.5 minute animation will premiere on May 7 at the CCA Animation Show!

Enjoy!

Sleepy Peet

A Shrubbery!

Undergrowth plants for the set of my thesis film, Ignite. I modified faux foliage by cutting the stalks down, adding my own wire, and painting them! 

A New Crop of Trees

This is another set of trees, when they are complete, it will bring the total up to eight!

The Forest is Growing

I covered the foam tree trunks in brown paper mâché

Building a Forest

I carved the tree trunks out of floral foam. The branches are made from aluminum wire wrapped in brown paper mâché. 

Dragon Beauty Shot

Puppets Are Done!

Boots and Belt

These boots are made from pleather. I designed a pattern, cut out the pieces, made some adjustments, and glued it all together!

The belt is a little strip of the same pleather. I bent a piece of wire to create the buckle

Peet, I am your father!

I wear a respirator while I'm gluing the scales onto Peet. The adhesive can be give off lots of fumes in my little apartment. I feel like Darth Vadar, but safety first!

Starting the Scales

These scales might look like ceramic, but they aren't! I poured Pebeo onto a thin sheet of acetate. Once the resin-based paint cured I cut it up into little shards and began gluing them to the dragon!

Glowing!

Tiny Dragon Toes

The foot is floral wire toes coming off of the T-Nut tie-down. I built up the shape of each of the feet by dipping them in latex  The little toenails are individually sculpted from epoxy clay and attached with glue. 

That little white square is a piece of tape to keep the latex from clogging up the threads of the tie-down.

Lookin' Like a Dragon!

All the parts are assembled!

Magic-Sculpt Helmet

I sculpted the Knight's helmet out of Magic-Sculpt epoxy clay last night. This is my first time working with the material, and I'm pretty happy with the results, but I think I'll make another one because I had such a difficult time. It's seriously like sculpting with bubblegum! I like the consistency after it hardens though, really neat material. 

Knight's Hands Mold Making

I am making a two part silicone mold for the knight's gloves.

After I sculpted the hands in Chevant Oil Clay over the floral wire armature I secured them in the container with hot glue. I am using a tuppleware container because the transparent plastic makes it easy to see if the hands are level!

I mixed up my Mold-Star Silicone and poured it into the container to make the mold and let it cure overnight. Instead of pouring the two halves of the mold separately, I made one solid block that I will razor apart to get the two even halves. 

Here is the two halves that I razored apart. I hope my attempts to cut in registration tabs didn't make me mangle it too badly, but I can see the two halves of the hands, and the silicone set up properly, so that is good.  There is one bubble in the palm of the left (bottom) hand, but I can patch that. 

Next step: casting!

Knight Costumed!

Embroidered and sewed the knight's jerkin! He is almost done!

Finished the Chain Mail!

I've been using a super tiny crochet hook to crochet metallic thread for the knight's chain mail. It has been super fun working on such a tiny scale and I am very pleased with the result!

Ignite Environment Design

I've been really challenged to design the set for Ignite. I keep bouncing between setting it in a cave or the forest. I think the set will be come a lot clearer once I see the colors that the physical puppets turn out to be, as well as the effect of real light and shadow. 

Right now, I am leaning towards a birch forest, keeping the colors in the set to a minimum. 

Chain Mail

Okay! My teacher officially told me I am crazy. I bought a 1mm crochet hook and have been crocheting metallic thread for the chain mail for the knight. I got the idea from the commentary from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Apparently, the chain mail for that film was all just loosely knitted hoods. Also the special features for Laika's Coraline showed the minuscule hand knitted sweaters for the puppets. Combined those two ideas and bam! Miniature knitted chain mail! 

Wish me luck.