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!

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!