A few weeks ago I began a job as a Junior Animator on Aardman's new Kickstarter-funded 15 episode series of the iconic terracota trouble maker - Morph.
I used to love watching Morph as a child - its one of the things that got me into Stopmotion animation (along with Nightmare Before Christmas, Wallace & Gromit and Trap Door). I backed it on Kickstarter when I first saw this, never thinking I'd be one of the (only) three animators working on it - and its such an amazing thing to be involved with. As my first paid job with Aardman it almost doesn't make sense to me.
I'm working incredibly hard and animating like a crazy man. 8 seconds a day is the target - which is tricky with all the constant sculpting and modelmaking. Those little guys don't have armatures, so its pure plasticine, sweat and tears.... literally sometimes.
Its all under closely-guarded wraps, so I can't put up pics, or give away plots - but just prepare to be (hopefully) dazzled.
So excited :)
This is the blog for the work, thoughts and musings of Adam M. Watts. Freelance Stopmotion Animator and regular at Aardman, Second Home Studios, Factory Transmedia
Showing posts with label sculpting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sculpting. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Modelmaking
So I was sorting through my models stashed away in boxes around the house - to take some decent pics now I've got a swish little digital camera (seeing as my old digital camera was from about the 1800's!!!)
Thought I'd try a blog post of just some character sculpting/modelmaking work I've done for the world to peruse.
First up - my robot for my university piece "Untitled Robot Adventure #17" (2006).
I didn't know much about lighting... or even animation for that matter... so the end result was a little disappointing looking at it now, but I learned a lot being my first ever stop-mo short film. And about 7 years on the model still looks pretty special (to me at least). Done a quick superglue fix up as it'd fallen apart a bit and finally took some quality photos.
Made using old bits of computers, TV's, radios, cameras - any old crap I found in a big electrical skip outside the uni's tech block... although the base he stands on was a cottonbud pot :)
Any tech nerds that can name 10 random parts win +100 geek points
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Next up, my graduation film "Endless Toys" (2007). Again, a large miss-fire on the lighting of the Santa scenes. It was meant to be dark and ominous, but it just ended up dark. Had to do quite an extensive clean up for these photos as he'd started to crumble in a box in the cupboard (urgent nose job required) and a bit of paint work needed. Made mostly with plasticine and milliput.
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And finally a maquette I knocked together while pitching for funding for an idea me and Mal had a few years ago. Just wanted to try actively sculpting to someone else's design for once and see how I could visualise a 2D drawn image in 3D. Still very much a work-in-progress... but fun to show off nethertheless. Went through several stages of looking like an evil pig - but I think I'm nearing the "slow-but-good-natured-bear" look.
Let me know what you think!!!
Thought I'd try a blog post of just some character sculpting/modelmaking work I've done for the world to peruse.
First up - my robot for my university piece "Untitled Robot Adventure #17" (2006).
I didn't know much about lighting... or even animation for that matter... so the end result was a little disappointing looking at it now, but I learned a lot being my first ever stop-mo short film. And about 7 years on the model still looks pretty special (to me at least). Done a quick superglue fix up as it'd fallen apart a bit and finally took some quality photos.
Made using old bits of computers, TV's, radios, cameras - any old crap I found in a big electrical skip outside the uni's tech block... although the base he stands on was a cottonbud pot :)
Any tech nerds that can name 10 random parts win +100 geek points
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next up, my graduation film "Endless Toys" (2007). Again, a large miss-fire on the lighting of the Santa scenes. It was meant to be dark and ominous, but it just ended up dark. Had to do quite an extensive clean up for these photos as he'd started to crumble in a box in the cupboard (urgent nose job required) and a bit of paint work needed. Made mostly with plasticine and milliput.
And finally a maquette I knocked together while pitching for funding for an idea me and Mal had a few years ago. Just wanted to try actively sculpting to someone else's design for once and see how I could visualise a 2D drawn image in 3D. Still very much a work-in-progress... but fun to show off nethertheless. Went through several stages of looking like an evil pig - but I think I'm nearing the "slow-but-good-natured-bear" look.
Let me know what you think!!!
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