MODELLING

Modelling

After a little while I got so sick of being in my sketchbook and started to make physical models to get things moving off paper a bit more. My story was still having things worked out but I knew what I wanted Lute to look like and I knew I had a lot of decisions about him to make regarding his final medium. I started by making a pretty small reference model of Lute from super sculpey. (Pictured above.) I dedicated a couple of days too it but I think it helped me figure a lot in a few different ways.

It was pretty helpful alone to get a change to work with super sculpey. I found it a really new and pretty fun experience. I couldn't fire and paint this version of Lute because I put a screw inside him so I could screw him to a wooden board so I have partial experience of the process but I now know what to expect if I decide to animate with it at any stage.

Nextly it was really nice to see that when he was made physical he was till cute and round and people were excited by a physical model whenever they saw him. It was reassuring because if he hadn't worked at this stage he definitely would not work when it comes to animating him.

It was also just nice to get out of my own head for a while and work on something as simple as realising decisions I'd already made. It felt a bit like manual labour and I kind of liked being able to switch other parts of my brain off. Gave me some head space.

After this I decided to look at the way I intended to make Lute's head. So I started by looking at the visor being indented in or portruding out.

Lute head models 001

Lute head models 003

Lute head model 002

These are the test I did for that. I was a little surprised at how much something as simple as that change could completely alter Lute's appearence. There was no way I liked it half as much portruding out of his helmet as I did when it was embossed in. It kind of changed his whole face shape when it was an extra layer on top of his helmet. So that was a nope.

lute maya model 001

Lute maya model 002

It was suggested to me that it might be kind of cool to 3D print Lute's head and becsause his head doesn't have any intercate details that require editing then it is entirely possible to 3D print his head without to many difficulties. So I took on the arduous task of modelling his head in after effects.

I created a turn around,

So I could model Lute pretty easily. Then I imported it into maya. I still have some things to try out. Mike says I wont get it right the first time around but I did have a good go at extruding shapes from a sphere and deforming them to look like a space helmet. Then I smoothed it out and had a little bit of a go at applying textures. I got a bit carried away and had a bit too much fun though so I had to stop myself. You can see the head as it stands in the above screenshot.

I'm hoping to 3D print the head sometime in the next semester. Then I'll sand it down till it's nice and smooth, then make it a little shiney so it resembles a pretty realistic space helmet. I'm not sure if I would prefer that or a much rougher balsa wood head. I love the aesthetic of a stop motion film. I like the puppets that peter vacz makes for his animations. You can always see an element of how it's been made. And I like mixing in colours where you wouldn't assume they should be. But there's also appeal in a nice shiney reflective surface like a 3D printed head would provide.

I'm aiming to get a chance to model a couple of heads ovet the next little while. So I can see what my options are and decide if I prefer a more commercial or stylized approach to stop motion puppets. I would also like to do some investigation into the materials I'd make the puppets out of.

I've been gathering together examples of puppets being made and of puppets I liked from other animations. At the moment thee idea I'm heading towards as being the most effective is the idea of bulking out the body with foam. I'm hoping foam will keep it's shape and allow me to maintain Lute's soft and well rounded exterior with reliative ease. So I've been looking at puppets that are build mostly from foam. I took a look at Ben's puppet from last year and how he decided to make it. But from what I can tell there's a lot of components to his puppets that would probably be unnescessary for Lute, and not as much foam as I thought there was. I also found some examples of puppets that are made of foam. Both one where the whole body is foam and one where bending points are constructed as well. There are breaks in the foam so it may move.

The octopus that you see, I believe, is created similarly to how you would make a toy. The armature is constructed then covered in cotton or something and tightly packed. It creates a pretty solid piece to move around when animating but the joints are still free and flexible.

Also on there I've taken a look at the finish. I wasn't orignally thinking needlefleted puppets, I was originally planning on having a more silk like material for Lute's body so that it would shine and reflect but the implications of keeping that constant is pretty daunting. I'm not sure that I want to spend so much of my time on puppet maintanence. I've always loved needlefelted puppets and I was thinking about the soft fluffiness of big character in "But Milk is Important" becasue I was wondering how they constructed him and then I thought to myself, well why don't I needlefelt Lute as well? It'd be soft, it would catch the pink and blue lights I plan to shine on him. It might allow me to control the join between helmet and suit pretty well and it would be firm enough to have continuity. So I'd like to needle felt a version of Lute. It could take a while so I might do that over my Christmas break.