Time is moving too fast!

Everything involving an animated film goes slow, very slow... The puppets' heads are almost finished, facial masks included. But the bodies are not what they have to be, yet. The Dragon Skin silicone is, as they promised me, a magical product. You really can't compare it with regular silicones. But moulding is one of the most difficult parts of production, I've made 20 or so for this film, and every mould is different. As you can see below my moulds aren't very good looking, but hey, they work! Time is just constantly working against me...











Here I was painting the inside of the moulds with Psycho-Paint, the product to colour the Dragon skin. When the complete "skin" of the bodypart is cured I fill it up with Dragon Skin (and include the armature) and the mould is being pressed close for six hours.
















Adam's room prior to adding the wallpaper.
















This Bambi-like figure will be placed on a big spring on the floor of the playground. It's based on a picture with my girlfriend sitting on it when she was a little girl.

















On Adam's little bed lies... a little Ugly Doll. It's details like that that make Stop Motion look nice.

So, today I'm going to make the animatic for the film. I'm going to photograph the puppets on the sets, posing them to get a clear view of what the film will look like. Tomorrow I'll have the first version of the film that way. The production is moving faster then ever now.

See Ya!

Hello!

It's been a long time now and that's because I'm busy like hell! The puppets are curing right now and that gives me some time to post this. It's the first time I'm using Dragon Skin, the silicone that was used on Corpse Bride, and that makes everything a bit more exciting. I used to use regular silicone for the bodyparts, but it wasn't very strong and broke up in no time. So, I thought: "Let's use professional material this time and it will have to work!". We'll see.
One thing I can recommend everyone who makes moulds is: Crystacast. This resin-plaster is:-Very Fine (takes all the details), Very Hard and the best of all; the airbubbles all escape from themselves! No more knokking on the moulds, no more thrilling plates, no more vacuum devices. As far as I know that's a unique quality for plaster. :)











These are the book-shelves that will go up the wall in Adam's room.





Here are a few of the drawings that will fill the walls in Adam's room. I'll only need some 100 more. (they are the size of stamps)










Here are Alta and Adam, ready for their rebirth. At the moment the heads are finished and have replacement-faces. The heads got a Styrofoam core (to be light) and an Epoxy skin (to be hard). I'll soon post some pics .


Experience has learned me one very important thing: "If you want to make it a professional way, the costs will be professional too!". And if you start the production on a certain level, you 've got to continue on that level. There's almost no way back...

See You Soon!

It's time I introduce you to the Animators of Her Hair: Andreas and Maarten. Altough I'm going to animate some parts on Her Hair myself, directing will be my number one task. Two second year students at RITS are specializing in Stop-Motion Animation and they were happy to be able to work on my graduation film. Last year they made two short films, a group effort ("Eduard") and a duo project ("Na Achten" or "After Eight"). It's these two films that convinced me to hand the larger part of my animation to them, here they are:





If their work on Her Hair will be that good, I'll be a very happy director!

See Ya!