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!

Working on the drawing skills

As the title says, I've been busy doing a fair amount of drawing lately.

My theory is that by drawing often (trying to do once every couple of days) I will be bound to improve in someway. It seems a logical way of thinking to me because you're not going to get good at something by not really practising it are you?!

If nothing else, drawing regularly will build up my confidence in the hobby.

But most of all, I'm drawing because I like doing it. It's a nice challenge, really gets you thinking and it quite literally uses all parts of your brain.

Not all drawings will go as well as you wanted but when some do, the feeling of euphoria really does take a hold of you. You feel proud of yourself that you've actually achieved something you aimed for.

Take this drawing for example. I know it needs a lot of work before it's truely great (i.e work on shading and all that technical stuff) but considering that I have never really attempted drawing people before I was pleasantly surprised at the first try.

I thought to myself, it's an alright place to start off at. I'm sure that people have started from a better place than this but then you must think also that others may have started from a point where they could only draw stick men.

So yes. With a combination of practise and proper tutorials, I'm hoping that I can get to a point where I feel I can call myself an artist!

Of course a little feedback would be good along the way too!!

how bout a doctor who scarf update, eh?!

Well, after being busy with various other things over the last few months, I finally found time to properly start this up again. If you refer back to the post where I first showed you the doctor who scarf, you can see that it has doubled in size. In fact, it's so long now that I had stand on my bed and take the picture from above! You can see my foot peeking in at the bottom. It's really taking shape but I'm still a long way from finishing. It needs to go round my neck and down to the floor whereas at present, it only reaches my chest! I love the colour blend of the scarf. It's very sort of rustic looking with all the dull colours mixed in with the bright colours isn't it. And I think it's completely accurate to the orignal scarf too. Now the query for me is will I get it finished for this winter or next? I guess it depends how often I do it. I bet though that I'll finish it just as a summer season is starting!

Half A World Away by Oasis

As I said I might do a couple of weeks ago, here is a video of me playing my new guitar and singing.

The song is by Oasis and some of you might recognise it as the theme tune from The Royal Family.

I hope you enjoy watching the video. It is not perfect and my singing is a bit off from time to time. I like to think though that I can hold a tune that doesn't hurt your ears anyway!

Please let me know what you think. I feel quite brave putting this on my blog actually. I'm very crictical of myself especially with singing. I lack self estem as I'm sure many of us do so I thought that by just going for it and putting this on my blog, it will boost my confidence to do things that scare me! As the Nike slogan says: Just Do It! Through this, I had an idea that would help me improve my guitar playing skills too. If you want to suggest a song for me to learn then I would love that and I could then perform it on my blog.

I like to ride my bicycle

I like to ride my bike! Ok, so enough of the cheesy song lyrics.

As you can probably tell from the picture and my ramblings above, I've been out and bought a road bike today. All very exciting especially when you think that the last bike I got was when I was 7 years old. Being out of action for the last 4 years too has meant that it hasn't really been practical for me to get one until now.

It's been an incredibly busy day today. So much so that I haven't looked after Jenna that much as I've been out. I owe Ellen a great big thank you for looking after her!

Kendal has got quite a few bike shops so Dad and I were out all morning looking in these. We eventually found one I particarly liked the look of in Evan's cycles. So whilst Dad and my credit card were being held hostage by the shop, I took it out by the riverside for a trial.

I liked and I bought. As simple as that!

Dad and I went for a 12+ mile bike ride in the afternoon. What with living in the hilly countryside, it was hard work but a nice hard work if you get me. Got the old muscles working and the lungs puffing anyway!

Not surprisingly very tired now so I'm off to rest!

Robot mural complete!

Finally, after months of having it half painted, I've actually gotten round to finishing the whole thing.

I'm so pleased with how it's turned out and it's a great thing to wake up and look at every morning.

The hardest part of the mural was definitely painting Jenna. Because of her fur being black and white all mixed into each other, it meant I had to try and blend the colours. Not an easy thing to do with white I can tell you! But it's come out good and my family say it's actually their favourite robot.

Once I had finished all the painting, I then outlined it all in black pen. It's amazing how much of a difference this can make! It somehow just helped to bring them all to life and look like they were coming out of the circle.

Ok so three walls of my room decorated, one more to go!

No more plastic bags!

Before I got given this bag by Ellen, I was using loads of plastic bags to fit in various projects. Now though, I have this beautiful bag which can fit in so much it's brilliant. I'm sorry about the quality of the photos. I didn't realise how bad the lighting was in these pictures until they were uploaded on here. But you can see what the bag looks like so I it'll do.

Anyway, Ellen made the bag very sneakily and managed to have me believe that she wasn't making anything for me. As it was our 18th, we both agreed to make something special for eachother. But what with Ellen busy with A levels, I thought that she was just buying me something instead.

The bag has been hand stitched which is a real labour of love seeing as Ellen hates hand sewing. So all the hexagons were sewn together which I can imagine must have been pretty tedious. Then she attached the inner green lining along with the wooden handles. I love the combination of colours that she has used. She knows the sort of colours I like...well! She is my twin after all!

Thank you very much Ellen!

Twin Travelling

I realised in my post yesterday that I mentioned going travelling. This is a pretty exciting prospect so I thought that I would go into more detail about it in this post. Now that Ellen has finished sixth form, she has decided to take a gap year whilst she figures what it is she wants to do next. Going off travelling has been something that has been lightly discussed for a while now and so hopefully it will happen sometime next year. No plans have been made yet but as we have family in both New Zealand and Australia we'll stay with them. As well as going down under, we're thinking of maybe getting one of those around the world tickets. It will be great to see other countries too. No idea which countries we'll go to but if you've been anywhere exciting then let us know!

I'll admit that when Ellen first proposed the idea of going travelling I was a bit unsure. For the people that know me, I've been through so much in recent years that being so independent and going off travelling by our own seemed such a big step for me. But I figured that this is a brilliant opportunity and one that cannot be missed. It will mean that I'll be leaving Jenna behind but Mum and Dad have been encouraging me to go so much that they say they're more than happy to look after her.

So yes. Watch this space.

Ellie the knitted Elephant

This little elephant here has been patiently waiting to make her starred appearance on my blog for quite a while now so I thought it was only fair to grant her wish as she'll never forget it if I don't!

This was the knitted project I was telling you about in a post a while back. She took I would say about a month's worth of solid work to make. My sister Ellen was made up with her when opened up the present on our birthday.

Ellen made me something too. She made me a knitting bag which tied in nicely with my present didn't it! I would show you a picture of the bag now but I'm so tired that I cannot be bothered to get up and take the photo. It's hot today so I'm feeling happily drowsy! I'll show you photo tomorrow maybe.

Whilst we're on the subject of cute animals, I thought I would show you my most recent picture of Jenna. She's almost fully grown now but I think it will take a while for her to lose the puppy look. She's doing really well although has built up a bit of a reputation of being a cheeky monkey! I only found out the other day but she's actually been digging a hole in the garden! We think that she's preparing for when I go to Australia with Ellen on her gap year. She's trying to dig a hole that reaches down under so she can join me!