Back!

I had a great time in Ireland with my family last week. We stayed in a place called Swords which was just on the outskirts of Dublin.

It's been years since we had a proper family holiday abroad and what with Ellen and I being 18, it's probably going to be one of the last all together so it was pretty special.

I had a lot of fun taking photos! We were out and about in some really beautiful places so I took quite a lot. I'm hoping to be able to get them all printed out and maybe make a collage out of them or something. I have the idea of cutting them out in a way so that they make up the shape of Ireland. The pictures I've chosen are just a few of the photos which sum up the fun we had! I got the little rubber duck underneath to remember that. I call him Paddy!!

Having never been to Ireland before, I was actually quite surprised at how different everything felt. Even though we weren't that far away from where we live, everything felt really european especially the town in which we stayed. That was nice though because it made us feel that we were truely away. As lovely as Cumbria is, it's always nice to look at different scenery.

Most of the time the weather was great which was a bonus. I even got rid of my vampire look by getting a tan!!

Jenna also had a good holiday. She went back to the breeders to stay and when I came to pick her up, she looked like she had put on a fair bit of holiday fat! But she had needed to be wormed so when they kindly did that for me, she put on weight really quickly. But she had a blast there. She looked so happy when I saw her again and that made me feel better about leaving her.

So everyone has had a great week!

It's only just beginning

Whoa! Had a very very busy week this week. As I said, it's only just the beginning because tomorrow me and the family are off to Ireland.

But before I go on about what's going to happen, lets talk about what has been. On the Tuesday to Wednesday, we had a house full of guests. My Granny was up to go to the Open with my Dad and my cousin was up too with four other people as they are doing the cycle challenge of John O Groats to Lands End.

They are cycling in the aid of charity to raise funds for their local children's hospice. I think it is truely brilliant what they are doing as it's not an easy challenge especially on a triden!! (A three man bike!) So when they set off again on the Wednesday, I cycled a little bit with them which was pretty cool.

I ended up doing a lot more then I originally thought which my Dad was not happy about. He wanted me to do no more than 8 miles but I sorta ended up doing double that! Opps! But I was fine and didn't collapse on the doorstep of our house or anything. I even had the energy to take a dog walk but have to run all the way home again as we got soaked in a thunder storm.

Then yesterday, I went to Manchester for most of the day shopping with my twin. I had never been in Primark until yesterday and so was introduced to it. It was insane how long we were in there for. It was just such a big shop that even though we were in there for over two hours, we still didn't see everything.

As my wardrobe hasn't been updated since I was thirteen, I took this opportunity to get some new clothes. As you can guess from the fact that I still wear clothes from being age 13, I needed a lot of help on what to pick. So Ellen was my personal shop assistant and just bunged stuff into my basket all over the place.

I had the best time with Ellen. We haven't had the chance do something like this together for years so I'm glad that we finally did it.

So yes! A very busy, exciting week but a lot more of it to come. I'm away in Ireland for a whole week so probably won't be able to put any posts up in that time but when I get back I'm sure I'll lots of stories and pictures to show you all. TTFN!

Peapod guy is wired!

As I said I would, here is the 2d wire sculpture I've been working on. It's basically one of my drawings in wire form. I managed to borrow a soldering iron from one of Ellen's friends so thank you to him! I think the last time I did soldering was when I was in year 7 electronics. So considering it's been so long, I don't think I was too bad. I was expecting the soldering to take ages but it turns out it didn't. The actual sculpting the wire into the desired shape took a fair while though. Overall, for a first time at ever doing this sort of thing, I was pretty happy with the results. This wire sculpture is going to take pride of place on my wall. As my wall colour is a very light colour, I think it will stand out really well.

Plasticine covering

I covered the armature today with a plasticine body. You can see this outcome in the picture obviously.

Now that I have covered the armature, I realise that it isn't going to work well for animation. At least, not the sort of wire I used. I found that after applying the plasticine, trying to move it around well enough for a range of movements in animating just wouldn't be possible. The wire is just too stiff for the soft medium of plasticine and therefore the wire comes through with very little manipulation.

It's a shame that I have reached this conclusion because I put a lot of work into it. Not to mention going out and buying a big reel of wire!! But it's just a case of trial and error. It's only by trying this out that I now have more of an idea of what will work in the future.

So for prototype model no.1 it was never to be that he would have a life in front of the cameras as so many before him have dreamt. He has resided to the window sill for now sitting on a rubiks cube. Not a bad life. I can definitely think of worse endings for the little dude!

But what to do with all this wire?! Well I hate waste so I've decided to make 2d wire sculptures to go on my wall. (Will keep you updated on this little venture.)

Armatures for animation

I'm starting to think about getting back into animation properly. Now that Jenna is a bit more independent, I'm able to have two eyes on the task ahead of me and not always having to check if there is a wee on the floor or not!

Speaking of Jenna, she's just jumped up on me and thus the laptop on my lap to say hello. I don't know how she does it, but she always manages to create some sort of interesting problem on my computer just by stepping on the keypad. On this occasion, she's managed to delete the picture I had just uploaded!!

Anyway. Using the previous experiences I've had with stop motion animation, I've found that I need some sort of structure inside the plasticine model to make it easier to move on set. The Magicked Picnic was a good example. Because I was moving the little guy so much, his arms were falling off incredibly easily as the plasticine kept cracking on the joint of movement. At the end of shooting, his arm looked totally deformed and a lot shorter!

So I decided the way to go was to just build my future models around this skeleton structure in order to combat those annoying little problems. It should hopefully make them a lot more flexible including actually being able to walk in a human like fashion.

As you can see, I made the armature by twisting two wires together and moulding them into the desired shape. It was a bit fiddly though; I think because it was my first time.

I was inspired to do this because I've been reading up on the way Aardman do things. Of course, their armatures are way more advanced using Meccano like skeletons. But, I'm sure every animator there started out making armatures just like mine to animate with. Everyone starts at the bottom and works up. I unfortunately am barely off the bottom! Time though. Time and determination I guess will change this!

guitar man

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. I got bought this kit a couple of months ago and made it up straight away. It's a cool little dude who now sits on my windowsill poised and ready to play!

I also did a drawing of him. Thought I'd post that too to make this post a little bit more interesting than just watching me turn a handle around in a shaky little film.

The only gripe I have about the kit was that the guitarist is right handed! I couldn't build it the other way either because all the peg holes would have been in the wrong place. Never mind!

Oh, and if you're wondering what the noise is in the backround of the vidoeo, it's Jenna chewing her basket!