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!

Hello Hello!

First of all "a Very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year to you all!"

Time does not stand still and another year is almost finished. 2007 will bring me a film (I hope) and , as it is the habit this time of year, I'll look back with you to a short film I made two years ago called: "Rain".

Hi,

The other day I had a first meeting with the composer for Her Hair, Sebastian Bradt. He works for the Logos Foundation in Gent, a group of people who experiment with sounds and instruments. Sebastian is going to create the futuristic sound for Her Hair, using Musicrobots...









Here is their studio with some of the robots playing a concert.

















This is an Automated Piano playing on its own, quite an amazing sight and sound! Take a look at the Logos site here: http://www.logosfoundation.org/ it's well worth a visit!

Cheers, Bart

Hills have skeletons too...































The fence
Adam checkin' his room

Technorati Profile

Creating an animated film goes slow, very slow. Every day I'm working on my sets and puppets and those things take time to make. I'm happy to say that the Mastermodel of Adam is now in his final stage, he just needs some finishing up. When this Epoxy puppet is done, I will make theMastermoulds and the Silicone versions will be moulded...

Here he is! In the back, Altaria is still being modeled in plasticine, with an early mask (for Adam) next to it on the ground.

The workshop at school has finished the tables that will form the base of the playground-set and here they are. Two of the three built are already in place, they have perforated steel plates on top to animate upon.
This is one of the hills, under construction.

I also made a ground plan of the playground scale 1:1 to have a clear overview on the set construction. The garbage can takes the place of a (very) big tree...


See ya!

Hello!

It's been a very busy week, no lessons to follow and that means: workin' like hell! ; ) I finally repaired my camera and here are some pics on the results of this weeks work:

Here's the little merry-go-round, currently in grey primer.

This is Adam's room, everything's ready (appart from the wallpaper but that will be the final touch). The bed will get a mattress and his little desk isn't painted on this side because the fourth wall will be in front of it. I've hung a drawing of Adam to show the scale of the set (Adam = 30 cm/11.8 In). The set itself is 1.20 m/4 ft high, plus the base it's standing on...I'ts a big set. The four walls are attached to the base with bolts and all walls can be removed so the camera can go anywere! The tree is the first one of the entire forest that has to follow (it's there for scale purpose)...

Here's the evolution from inspiration to creation. The elephant is now painted in a red primer, he will get a dark colour later on. My neighbour and I welded this steel structure in two days and I'm happy with the result. It stands 50 cm/20 In tall and has two small benches the puppets will sit on during the film; one in the belly and one on the back.
Today I've added the slide, the glue on the MDF piece is now drying...

This is Adam's head, waiting to be moulded in plaster. I've created the mould in Lego; the ScaryCat approach!
The rest of the body will be moulded soon.

See Ya!

Hi there!

And now for something completely different! A French-Belgian short has been shown recently on ARTE (French television). "Le Cid" brings the story of the classic Spanish legend, played by insects.


It was animated by the Rock&Rollers at Beast Animation! Click the link on the right of the page!
I had the opportunity to do an internship during the holiday, helping to construct the (pretty huge) sets. If you want to see a "different" kind of beautiful Stop-Motion Animation; wacht it here in RealPlayer:

http://www.arte.tv/fr/cinema-fiction/court-metrage/1341874.html

Enjoy!

hello hello,

Currently I'm working on some setpieces and the puppets. There are no pictures yet because my camera is f*****-up! But I did make some rough artwork of the playground.



These are only early suggestions and the final set will look different. The trees look a bit too realistic to me and the elephant will have smooth shapes.

I'll post pictures of the first trees and furniture that are drying as I'm writing this down! So much left to do, and so little time to do it in! The deadline (Xmas) is getting closer and closer...

Greetz, Bart ;)