Noah Trailer 2:

finished the second set today, spent the last coupla hours doing some lighting tests/ finding out some electrical fiddling is needed.

anyway heres a preview

I will *attempt to keep this vaguely updated.. today ive been working on the second set, which is for the second half of the film, heres how it looks so far:














so far so good. More updating SOON

Its been a very long while since ive updated this blog. Im afraid ive been very busy with all this film making and so fourth. Ive kept more upto date with logging my progress on my facebook, so i can link to that if more info is of interest.

Anyway to make up a little for lost time here is the trailer for my film. Im about halfway through shooting at this point. Enjoy :)

Lots of stuffs been haooening in the last few weeks, so apologies for lack of updates. My armature from john right is finished as you can see, and the sets been developing well

Hallo, just an update on my work during the last week. Last monday (16th feb) I was in newport working on my molds and making some props for John's film (knopic jars). I stayed in newport till the wednesday working on molds with help from John and making a few odds and ends for him as well, but eventually I had to return to Bristol becasue I ran out of silicone (which i was using for making molds onf the head parts) and had a backup supply there. I cocked up the silicon moulding in bristol a bit as I diddnt shake the catalyst liquid before mixing it with the silicone, which ment it took several days to cure (some bits are still sticky now!) and I made a fair bit of mess, but its turned out okay now.. The weekend was quiet work wise as I was traveling around alot visiting a convention and seeing my grandmother. Today I've been finishing the last of the purs for my molds, making them all complete now (bar the facial mold). Once the 2 foot molds are set I'll take them to John Wright to help him build armatures to fit them, hopefuly I can do that this evening. Im heading to newport again tomorrow to see my dissertation tutor and I may hang around there for thursday as well to get advice from John on doing my resin casts and also so that I can speak to Larua Jons who has asked for some advice on using photoshop. During this week I also did a couple of sound tests, but they wernt that great, i need to get back into it. A few local mates of mine are gonna help me out with the sound now if all goes well.

Ive finally got some mold making pictures to put up, i have 7 molds finished so far, s'been a busy week! my resin and spare silicone arrived today so im beginning on the molds for the head armature next, and doing some test casts....

its been a while but ive been pretty busy, lately ive been making all my molds. They're not finished but ther well under way. Im gonna jot down a few key dates for when ive done things..
I finished the torso mold on the 1st of febuary after a few mishaps, and i took it to John Wright last thursday, he says the armature will take about 2 weeks from now. Last monday me and John started work on the 3 main support arms for the armature. i spent most of the last 2 weeks working on all my small molds, i now have all the boxes made for all molds except the feet and the hands, one kneww and one elbow are all bedded ready for the plaster. I got my laptop back from the repair guy on friday, so now i have a computer with working sound, so i can get back to work on the sound for the film.

My main concern right now is Noah's feet, they require the cunstruction of a 3 part mold and some fiddly armature work that could be costly. Im wondering wether to omit them somehow, either by avoiding shots showing them, turning them into visable stumps or replacing them with something, possibly mechanical prosthetics of some kind. Anyway ill draw up some ideas and try to work it out.

I have been taking pictures of the molding, and ill try and get them up soon, im just killing time at the minute.

I just thought I'd do a quick update as its a month still the last one. At the moment I'm staying with my dad and working on the set, its getting there but predicably progress is slower than I'd like. I'll try and get pictures soon.

This is the new instrument for my soundcape, its the inside of a piano.















The sounds that you can get from it are really spooky and just the extra element my sondscape for the film will need.

Before I broke up for christmas I had to do another 5 minute presentation, this is the video I put together for it:


The video has some fragments from some of the sound tests I made using the piano.

its been a while since my last update, I've been doing dissertation work amongst other things. The inner skull of Noah's head and the torso sculpt are finished and ready for molding now, here are some pictures:











































Ive also done a lot of new soundscape work, but sadly the sound card on my PC has decided to die, and its not letting me put it up here. I've looking at the budget for the film today and scaring myself, I'm still looking at over a grands worth of costs, so I'm going to have to sell my guitar and some games consoles soon I think. My mum and dad have found a couple of cool sounding props for the film set, but I'll wait till I have more info/ photos so you'll have to wait and see!

I'm back in bristol this weekend and clearing out dad's garage. It went well and should be pretty much ready for me to start building the set. I haven't rung John Wright yet, about the armature, but will do tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get good news, I could do with some about now.

Just an update on the sculpting stuf today really, heads moving along slowly, its really been a pain in the ass to make. Lots of strange unstable shapes. as you can see the proportions have got a bit crazy, this is mainly because I need to incorperate the teeth (which are a wixture of fox and wallaby teeth). Its growing on me tho, I think itll work.

heres how the torso sculpt is coming along, ive started detailing it today.

Two thing to put up today, first off a quick photo of my progress on the final head sculpt:














And a design sketch for it, showing how the armature will work:















The second thing is another lump of test animations with some more sound stuff:


I should probably go to bed........

Went to John Wrights studio again today with all my new stuffs, he was home ill sadly but I got to speak to some of his technicians who'd helped my out the first time I visited so I got it all sorted. The've taken some photos of the sculpt and a few of my design drawings and they should have an armature plan and an idea of the cost for me by next friday (nov 28th). Meanwhile on my end I have to finish off the torso sculpt and make the mold of it as a priority so they can use it to make sure the key armature praportions are accurate. I'll finish up with a recent photo of the body sculpt, its still very much work in progress.

Just a quick one as its late. I'm back in Bristol at the moment and I when to check out my dads garage where I'll be animating the film. Here's a pic:














Dads been collecting up wood and bits of tubing for me to help me build the sets with as you can see! In two weeks time I'm clearing it out ready to start building sets. While I'm in Bristol I'm also gonna go visit John Wright again armed with my sculpts and armature designs, hopefully it'll be enough for him to work out a quote to see how much it'll cost. This'll help me work out my lighting budget and weather I can get myself a copy of stopmotion pro for the computers. Then I can get it built.

In other news its also nice to see my cat Lola who's living with my folks at the moment, hopefully she can come back to Newport soon :)

sorry for the lack of postings over the last few days, Ive been trying to avoid the computer so I can get more work done. Ended up feeling a little strange and unwell though and didn't get much done anyway, so its not been a great week all told.

Ive been working on the torso sculpt, decided to make a sculpy skeleton to sculpt the plaster over, but it ended up being quite a chore as it kept exploding/ falling apart and was very time consuming and frustrating. Here it is anyway:














I also finished the skull I was making and did a plasticine face for it.

i got my camera working!! So It'll be mostly photos today, I'll start with the plasticine feet I made last night, ther not really finished but these are gonna be the final ones for molding.














This Is how the body will fit together, there will be 10 parts joined together by metal cuffs to which the support arms attach.



















Heres the full size character design from the front and the side, the heads gonna change, perhaps the hands too. These photos are all distorted because i had to photograph them at odd angles due to their size (A2)



















and finally the new skull I'm making, its not finished cuz I've run outa sculpey.

















The purpose of this model is to work out if adding molars further back on the jaw works, I hope it does but I'll have to wait till I put on the plasticine 'skin' before i find out.

peace out

finished the bulk of the armature design today, just need to do the hands and finish figuring the head. I ran out of sculpey yesterday so I cant finish the new head just yet. Ive bought 2 more packs from the same guy as last time, so they should arrive monday I hope. Cost about 14 quid for both and makes it 4 packs so far for this project. Apologies for noting this down here, but I'll loose the info when it comes to budgeting this thing later. As of now my estimate is that I've spent around 40 quid on sketchbooks, 15 on pens pencils rubbers, rulers ect, mebbe make that 20. And about another 40 on bits and bobs for making the set and props (cameras and stuff). Tenner on camera batteries, 40 quid on CDs and DVDs related to researching the projects look and sound... 15 quid on plasticine. I think thats It. around 200 quid so far and I'm bound to have forgotten something.

My guesstimate at this moment in time is that the film will cost me around 2 grand, so pretty soon I'm gonna have to cut corners or risk getting in dept.

not been able to do as much today as I'd hoped, but I've started working towards the final design for Noah's head. been sculpting a new head too, one with molars in just to see if it'd work. Managed to set the oven too hot and burn the bottom jaw though as you can see:













Today I've also been working on some props for my friend John's film. Hes a fellow animation student and also a stop motion animator/modelmaker, so we're helping each other out a little. Anyway hes asked me to make some masks for him, I've done 6 so far, these are the most recent 3 I sculpted:

Well my animatic went down okay, i needed to explain the plot a bit more which was what I expected. Still gotta work out how I'm going to put the backstory in there without it becoming to epic...

This evening I've been working on a full scale character design of Noah, which i can use to design the armature along with John Wright. He comes out around 2 foot tall, I'll give a more accurate measurement when I find my ruler. I managed to get a couple of snaps before my camera died again. Ive been doing it in layers, so theres a skeleton, a muscle man and a version with the skin on. I got a photo of the skeleton and a page of templates I used to make sure the drawing was symmetrical. Hopefully I can get some better pics tomorrow!