A few words from Lancelot Squeeze...

Following on from the filming for the lip-synch and having edited that together and got the timing down so I'm fairly happy with it, a couple of videos. Still to be done is the colour correction and treatment of the RAWs (the high quality pics taken before being converted and run together as a video sequence), the compositing of the puppet/Poppet footage into the foreground (which I'm still animating and filming) and crops/camera movements (which will be done in Adobe After Effects, along with the compositing).

There's still some way to go with the lighting (but pleased with the progress) and with getting the animation of Lance Squeeze - I don't want to lose the 'jerky' look, but do want to exaggerate the facial expressions, movements and timing for these.

Here are the videos:

Lip-synch test 1:

(...and on the bit-better-quality Vimeo)

Lip synch test 2:

(...and, once again, on Vimeo)

Lastly, an initial quick treatment of one of the JPEG frames to give an approximation of the sort of colour-corrected look I want to go with - darker, cooler, more contrasty, quite desaturated:

Lance Squeeze filming session

A mini-update, having made some progress with animating and photographing Lance Squeeze.

The good stuff: The efforts on lighting have definitely moved forward and, I think, complement the character nicely. Also feel that I'm learning more about how to (and how not to) do the make up effectively - both in how to achieve the look and how to make it durable enough for several hours sweating under hot lights. It was quite gruelling spending a long time on the make up and then holding sequences of hundreds of poses frame by frame. The lip-synching (mostly) worked and the character looks odd and inhuman animated frame by frame - loads of room for improvement, but lots more learnt in how to do this since earlier tests.

The downside: the biggest hitch was keeping track of the frames and reference material for the lip synching of the dialogue. With a cloudy contact lens on one eye and no glasses, I wasn't able to read the frame numbers on my monitor a lot of the time and so had to keep my glasses hidden and 'break pose' to check this on many occasions. I think rigging the monitor up (ideally a bigger monitor) close to the camera where my eye is and a 'real' contact lens for my 'good eye' will help with this.
Worse than this, although my setup with a bluetooth keypad controlling the computer to trigger each shot works really well on the whole (sometimes hidden in part-folded arms, at other times on the floor and triggered with my trusty big toe), Dragon Stop Motion has an absolutely infuriating habit whereby from time to time it puts up the option to trigger multiple frames - the only way to pass this is to physically go over to the computer and respond to the dialogue pop up.
This is something I badly need to get to the bottom of so I can avoid it happening in future. For all that's great about Dragon, it has it's share of eccentricities and doesn't integrate with Windows in a lot of ways that can be safely taken for granted with other software (common button functions, drag and drop, etc).

Of course, having a friend present to assist when I'm filming Lance squeeze in future would address a lot of these problems, and I intend to do this as the process approaches being polished enough for the actual real-deal production of Ties. I'm just stubbornly self-sufficient and, as it's a pretty long and slow process, I've felt inclined not to 'use up' favours until the process is further along the testing phase.

Anyway - I'll update with some of the current edited footage when that's done in the next couple of days. In the meantime, a still frame to show the look, which I'm pleased with and I hope reflects some of the work that's gone into it so far:

Creating a hero 1: Introducing Poppet

As an update is well overdue, I wanted to post some pictures of the Poppet character, somewhat retrospectively, which I'll follow with pictures and a description of the development and build process in due course, along with stills from animated sequences.

This was certainly the most challenging aspect of the project so far, and, in some ways, it feels like I've been trying to 'run before I can walk'. It's fallen short in some ways from what I intended, but it also represents substantial personal progress and a lot of invaluable lessons learnt and tucked away for the future.

I'm pleased with meeting the challenge of new materials, some of the controllability of the character and the overall look and texture. He's fallen short in that the weight of the puppet is a bit too much for the armature I built (i.e. his jointed metal 'skeleton') and so, even with some adaptations, requires the use of a rig a lot of the time (i.e. a heavier duty, jointed support arm that screws into the back of the puppet and can also be used to suspend him mid air for jumping, running, flying, etc). I also didn't reach the level mobility I wanted for his facial features - he does have some mobility to eyelids and mouth shapes, but not as much as I'd intended and hoped for.

The photos show Poppet in 'insect' and 'human' poses, the first pic shows the scene lighting for the table top where the majority of animation occurs (I'd love to say I made Poppet's guitar, but that would be a big, steaming lie. Luckily, there are a bunch of mini instruments available through eBay, etc - definitely promising props for a future music vid when I have enough puppets to form a band)

It was shot in RAW a bit underexposed, both for the sense of gloom and to have a fair margin to play with the highlights and ramp these up a bit without the nasty clipping that is characteristic of blown highlights on digital photos and allows for something a bit closer to the elegant, less abrupt 'shoulder' that's characteristic of maxxed out highlights on film. This is another area I'm still very much getting to grips with, but am pleased with progress on so far. I also intend to tone down the blue edge/kicker light with a subtler, paler blue gel than what I had available.

Annotations, poses, expressions and action shots will follow in future posts and edits. Pics are clickable for big versions...

Creating a Monster 2: Introducing Lance Squeeze

Having spent a lot of time picking the pieces for the look and considering the character of Lancelot Squeeze, the time to see how close to the actual look came to my mental image of the character was well overdue.

I learnt some dos and don'ts in the process and it was time consuming and uncomfortable, but the result was very much in line with what I had intended and hoped for.

Applying the stippled latex and drying it with a hairdryer whilst keeping my skin stretched was a drawn out challenge with only one pair of hands and verged on physical pain at times, there were parts of the job that were rushed or skipped over for the test run, perhaps most noticeably skipping the blending in of the top edges of the hairpiece and working quickly on the paint/make up job, but these and other minor points are things I'll have more time for when I'm filming Lance Squeeze, and I'm sure the process will be quicker to repeat than as something entirely new.

One excellent source of guidance for the latex ageing process that I took a few useful pointers from was Bill Barto's article here. there's a more detailed description of the specific techniques and materials I used myself at the end of the post...

...in the meantime, without further rambling, let me introduce you to a friend of mine (pics are clickable for larger versions)...

Test shot of myself with slightly coloured latex stippled on and dried to age and scar and the initial colour applied (actually watercolours), along with the cloudy contact lens:

Next, I added some small latex pieces to my head for the textured, uneven, scabby look that I'll probably have a less pronounced but real version of myself one day. I don't actually mind - on a side note, I was lucky enough to meet the animator Ray Harryhausen a while ago at a book signing, and doubly lucky that they were preparing to pack up as the shop was empty by then, so I had him to myself for 10 minutes of chat about animation and stuff - it was a privilege as he's an inspiration and was a lovely bloke, really warm and down to earth. He also had a wonderfully flaky 'old man head', the image of which stuck in my mind (not verging on pustulating like Squeezes, mind you). So anyway, I take a comfort from the fact that if I reach old age and mine ends up being a bit, erm, textured, one of the stop-motion animation giants has been down the same road before me...

 

...and the finished look. It was a strange, interesting, exciting and disconcerting feeling looking in the mirror and seeing Lancelot Squeeze staring back at me, almost like finally getting to meet someone you've heard a lot about. It somehow made it easier to feel the character in ways that I hadn't before and I spent a good deal of time prancing around, pulling faces at myself and improvising snatches of dialogue:

Lastly, a few specifics about the processes involved.

I used Trylon liquid latex for the wrinked skin and head scabs, added to which was a small amount of latex colourant (also from Trylon) that had been mixed to a fleshy tone. I think for future reference, I added slightly too much colour, and, as latex dries yellowy, I could have added less yellow in making the flesh tone and the tint of the dried latex would have balanced this. Next time, I'll also do a test on the level of colour by adding a minimal amount of colourant to begin, then drying/setting a small amount of the latex/colourant mixture to check the finish when the latex has dried, adding more colourant and testing again until I achieve the desired balance of colour and translucence/semi-transparency.

The stippling process for the skin would be a LOT easier with a helper - basically I stretched my skin as much as possible with one hand, also aided by twisting and stretching my head in different directions, stippled some of the latex mixture on with a small piece of sponge (just enough to cover the skin) and dried it with a hairdryer, keeping the skin as stretched as possible through the process. I actually ended up having the hairdryer running and propped on the side of a table, with my neck contorted and my hands holding my skin taut until the latex had dried.

I powdered the latex with a very light, cautious dusting of talc after this to avoid the thin latex sticking to itself (light and cautious so as not to 'whiten' the finish). there are better, purpose made alternatives to talc, but these are expensive, I don't have any more money to spend nor do I know if there's a better make-do alternative.

Another important consideration with the latex is any hair - head hair, eyebrows, eyelashes and facial hair - if you get latex in any hair, it's horrible to get out and you'll probably lose some of the hair in question in the process. I'd bought some 'scar wax', which I didn't end up using to make scars, but which worked fine to cover my eyebrows and, unlike latex, came out easily afterwards by scrubbing (with no eyebrow loss). You can also buy purpose made 'eyebrow plastic' that works in similar way but probably washes more easily. I was also very careful when stippling close to my eyelashes.

For the head pieces, I used some very small, scrunched up pieces of latex and 'painted' these into place with a brush and more latex. Although there was no potential for wrinkles as the head skin doesn't 'move' like skin on the face, I'd also stippled latex onto my head to help these to take, to add a bit of roughness/texture and for continuity from the face and the same finish for areas that were painted.

The scar that runs up the character's left cheek and across the cloudy eye was a sort of accident - I think I'd start a second layer of stippling on the left cheek and the first layer wasn't properly dry or powdered and so came away, worth remembering next time, but this setback actually worked quite well as the scar in the end.

I made sure when stippling the neck that this went below the collar line.

The addition of surface colour was done with water colours and a mixture of brushes. Most noticeably to the scar, the head scabs, liver spots on the head, the area around the eyes and a pleasing alcoholic reddening of the nose. I'm sure this finish could lack durability, but I didn't have nor could I afford face paints and they were good to work with as they don't have a time limited workability like, say, thinned acrylics (without retardants). I didn't expect flaking/cracking/crumbling to be an issue as they were applied sparingly and watered down, and this proved to be a fair assumption.

The eyebrows and moustache were applied with spirit gum - I'd left the areas beneath them free of latex. I also left the area for the headpiece 'bare', but applied this with Copydex glue (which is latex based) and this did a decent job. This wasn't apt for the eyebrows moustache as they're made from hair attached to fine netting, and it seemed likely that latex clogging up the fine netting would shorten their life and that latex remnants might be visible for future uses. The hair was tweaked and the 'combover' strands put in place with some old waxy hair gel type stuff.

talking of which, I was a bit disappointed with the eyebrows and plan to give them some further trimming and shaping. I wish in retrospect that I'd just made some of my own with the fake hair I used for the hairpiece, as they were quite expensive, too.

I was pleased with the look of the contact lens - no technique to that, just pop it in and you're good to go.

And the teeth - it sounds pretty foolish, but these were actually attached to my own teeth (after drying inside my mouth) with superglue. Much as this sounds like a trip to A&E in the making, it's something I'd actually done years ago after making some fake fangs (also from false nails) that worked very well the first time round (and which I'd done after having seen someone else do it with no problems). It's not something I could recommend, but it worked fine for me. If you are thinking of ever trying it, just be careful not to stick your fingers or lips together...

Creating a Monster 1: The Name of The Puppeteer and Cutting my Teeth

I'm in the process of creating the look for 'The Puppeteer', who, incidentally, now has a name - he'll be known as Mr Lancelot Squeeze.

I wanted a name that fit with some of my imagined characteristics for the puppeteer and the setting of the animation:

Eccentric - The Puppeteer (Lancelot Squeeze) is an outsider, with himself and the Puppet (Poppet) existing in a twisted, claustrophobic, distorted microcosm behind closed doors, in which their relationship has been able to go off on an unhealthy, abusive tangent from the superficially normal everyday standards. It's also more apt to me for a puppet to have life in this slightly unreal setting than in the 'normal' world.

Old-fashioned - I'm leaning more over time towards an Edwardian/music hall era implied setting for the animation, when puppetry would have had more of a place in entertainment, but was perhaps in decline with the development of technology, cinema and other new media.
 Whether this is an old man from a past era in a modern setting or if the setting actually is Edwardian era England doesn't need to be explicit for the purposes story and narrative. The combination of squalor and theatricality is what's important to me, along with a sense of redundancy and hanging on to past success.

Funny - A slightly ridiculous, unbelievable ring to the name was something else I wanted. Names and images of musicians and performers from times before slick, modern marketing often appear bizarre and comical from today's perspective.

Threatening - 'Lancelot' and 'Squeeze' are both evocative of physically violent, aggressive actions. The juxtaposition of quirky and ridiculous with threatening and violent is core to the character of the Puppeteer and the intended feel of the animation.

Stage name/play on words - The name originated from the working name of the puppet, 'Poppet', as I wanted a complementary name for the pair's double act, with a view to making some music hall-style posters and/or flyers as promotional material for 'Ties' and possibly to be integrated into the backdrop and/or flashback sequences for the animation.
'Lancelot Squeeze' allows for the double act's name of 'Lance Squeeze & Poppet' (or simply 'Squeeze & Poppet')...

...and the teeth:

I decided some time ago to play the part of 'Lancelot Squeeze' myself, rather than working to a tighter timescale making up and animating an actor/'human puppet'. The advantages of this, for me, are time and control, along with the opportunity this lends for experimentation, developing some of my own skills - and because I think it'll be good fun!

One of the substantial poses this challenges is to create a convincing and appropriate physical look for Lance that works well. To this end, I've been researching, investing in and creating various resources to create his look, most of which is for his head and face, as we only ever see him from the chest up.

I have all the resources, but still need to do some of the 'making'. These include:

Eyebrows - I bought some bushy, grey, human hair false eyebrows, which I've trimmed down somewhat as they were HUGE - I guess intended for a stage or just epic exaggeration.

Moustache - A grey, human hair, handlebar moustache - I felt that this was suitably old fashioned and evoked the 'cruel ringmaster' aspect of Squeeze's character.

Contact lens - a single, milky, semi-opaque contact lens. a bit embarrassed at how much I spent on this, and totally white ones were quite a bit cheaper, but it became an insistent and essential part of my mental picture of Squeeze, so it had to be done.

Scar wax - a soft wax that can be molded into prosthetic scars and other features. I bought this both to help with a cut on Squeeze's head - which he sustains during one of the flashbacks, when Poppet rebels and 'pulls back' on his strings, sending the surprised Squeeze tumbling - and, possibly, to create an old scar running from one cheek to the 'milky' eye and continuing onto the brow, as well as the option of some smaller scars and blemishes.
These are important in reflecting Squeeze's age, his own rough and violent life and also in alluding to his genesis as a perpetrator of violence stemming from being a victim of violence and abuse himself.

Grey hair - I bought a bunch of synthetic grey hair from a local hair and beauty shop, with the intention of making a latex-based hair piece that sits above Squeeze's ears and goes round the back of his head, leaving the bulk of his head bald. for this, it's a blessing that I shave my hair, as it offers a 'blank canvas' for me to add these effects to.
I intend to 'grease' the hair so that it is long, lank and greasy, hanging down, with several loose strands running across Squeeze's head, in a nasty, dirty old man style.

Latex and colourant - as well as making the hair piece, one of the most important tasks is to age the character. By stippling latex on stretched skin with a sponge, drying it and then letting the skin return to it's normal position, it's possible to create a convincing wrinkled look. I intend to mix some latex colourant to a suitable skin tone and add a small amount of this to the latex so that it provides some colour, but still retains some degree of transparency and translucence.

Black food dye - This is to colour the inside of Squeeze's mouth, to add to his sense of rottenness and to complement...

...Teeth - I created some individual, crooked, stained teeth. These were cut to size and shape from false nails, hand painted and sealed with a satin acrylic spray-on coating/varnish. They'll be temporarily attached to the front of my own teeth with a suitable fixative.  I took some 'in progress' photos while I was working on them:

Top teeth cut from false nails, bottom row showing showing how they started:

Top and bottom teeth both cut:

 

Both sets trimmed down after some 'test fitting' and painted:

...with acrylic lacquer added (they're a bit less shiny in person and look more reflective with the flash - actually somewhere between the shots above and below):

and with some of the other accessories in progress:

On another note, I found more problems with the green screen filming than expected with light spill from the green screen and other issues I hadn't anticipated. I did make a short sequence from the botched footage, which is flawed but was fun, and I learnt a lot in the process of getting it wrong. Please bear in mind that the animation of the armature and myself were done as quickly as possible 'on the fly' with no planning and for the purposes of the test, rather than to show off animation, so don't expect polish on that front (c;

Building a puppet theatre

The most recent contribution to the Ties project has been the creation of  a miniature puppet theatre, which will be used for the flashback sequences to musical performances by the cockroach marionette, Poppet, during his descriptive narrative of events leading up to the 'present' time of the animation. I decided to document this part of the process fairly thoroughly, as I knew that quite a lot of work was going to go into it if it were to turn out right…
I had some simple requirements in mind for the theatre:

1) I wanted it to combine the look of an old fashioned puppet theatre with a real-life, plush, grandiose theatre setting. I decided to base the details on traditional theatres and opera houses, but to scale it down so it is recognisably a puppet theatre. I used photos of actual theatres and opera houses as a point of reference. This sort of thing:

2) I wanted the scale to work well in proportion to the puppet; for this, I aimed for the stage large enough to have a sense of grandeur and to give the puppet some room for manoeuvre and expression without being cramped, yet small enough to retain the sense of the puppet as a small scale character on a puppet stage, rather than as a person would be in scale to a real stage.

I also wanted the puppet to fill the screen sufficiently for extended shots of the puppet framed by the stage, rather than as intro and outro to tighter framing for the puppet’s performance. My rationale is that I can keep the detail and atmosphere of the setting, whilst being tight enough to show the details of the character and allow for some expressive body animation, cut with close ups of upper body and face during key moments.

To achieve this, I decided to make the stage to the same proportions as the screen for the animation - 16:9 - and for the puppet to be around 2/3 the height of the theatre. As the puppet is being built to a height of around 11” to 12” - corresponding with 1/6 scale if he were a human figure - I built the front of the stage 18” high, which met this requirements and was a convenient doubling up of the 16:9 proportions to 18” height x 32” width.

3) I wanted to make the prop durable enough to survive any knocks and the general rigours of the animation in one piece and to be reusable for future animation. This was quite a challenge, as I’m used to working with a mixture of materials in 3D to get a look that I like, but the result usually ends up being fine to display, but far too fragile last on an animation set. My initial plan with scrap wood and 3mm MDF board was initially too wobbly and breakable and had to be reinforced. See below for more specifics on materials.

 I also decided that I wanted the backdrop and floor to be removable and replaceable, which allows for changes to the setting and the option of a green screen background for Ties and other projects.

4) Lastly, I had to make the stage area deep enough to allow the puppet room to move, but not so deep/far back that the edges of the backdrop showed in shot. This wasn’t problematic, as it turned out – allowing 9” gave plenty of room for the puppet, the curtains and the backdrop, and I could have gotten away with a deeper stage without the edges showing. Nonetheless, it was an important factor to bear in mind with the basic design.

There were other considerations which, in retrospect, I would have taken into account from the beginning but, as a first effort at prop design, I can happily take these as lessons learnt for future projects.

So – onto the process of the build itself…

Materials

For the physical structure of the stage, I wanted materials that balanced strength with lightness, workability with limited tools and kept the cost as low as possible. After a browse through my scrap materials and local DIY shop, I decided to use 3mm MDF for the front and rear of the stage and connect these at the corners with 9” sections of wood cut from leftovers from the Ikea table top I’d used for the set.

For the curtain material, background card and paper, gold braid and gold ‘rope’, I looked through local art, craft and fabric shops, browsed eBay and had a rustle through my wardrobe for potential sacrificial items. A combination of these provided some wine red faux velvet, gold braid, rope and tassels and some thin cream cotton material (I didn’t like that shirt much anyway).

The following picture shows the cut out MDF pieces for the front of the stage. I used a Stanley knife with a metal ruler to cut the MDF pieces. The middle piece is for three sections of bunched fabric and the top piece is for a covered and gold braided top front section. These are to be drilled and bolted to the main (bottom) piece. The bolts are spaced with nuts thread-locked into place on one side and tightened on the other side. The light weight of the thin MDF and of the faux velvet fabric, which is not only cheaper, but also lighter than the real thing, are helpful in that they’re not heavy enough to ‘droop’.

You can also see the red fabric and gold braid I bought before I started cutting and measuring.

The next picture shows the start of the application of the fabric and gold border to the top front piece. This was cut to size so I could fold it over the edges and glue it to the rear of the MDF piece, where any glue soaking through the fabric wouldn’t be visible. This also meant I didn’t need to be cautious about being stingy with the amount of glue I used and risk the fabric coming unstuck. I used Copydex glue, which is latex based, so is flexible when it dries and works well with wood and fabric. Prior to this, I had drilled the holes for the connecting bolts through this and the (middle) piece that it would be attached to behind it and secured the bolts, as they wouldn’t be accessible once the fabric was in place.

 

In the next pic, you can see the rear of the same piece with the bolts in place and the second piece for the bunched/draping  fabric, with cut outs for the gaps between the three bunches so the board doesn’t show.

 

Getting the fabric to hang right on the second piece was down to guesswork and trial and error. I found that folding the fabric in a concertina pattern, experimenting with its placement on the MDF and pinning it when it looked right eventually yielded the look I was after.

Here it’s initially folded…

In the meantime, I’d also sprayed the main front piece white, with a view to painting it, as, at this stage, I intended to paint a textured pattern along the bottom piece of the stage that would be visible when it was finished.

I stippled paint onto it with some sponge to give a textured finish, before drilling for the attachment of the middle piece and trying a quick test fitting. At this point, the bunched drapery still needed some tweaking before it looked right…

I also started to work on the rest of the fabric. I planned to have a set of static front curtains, held back with braided gold rope, a further set of red curtains behind this, ‘inside’ the stage on a cord so they can open and close, and an inner set of semi-transparent, cream coloured curtains behind these that can also be opened and closed.

You can see the progress with the pieces and decorative gold braid in the next pics, along with the first test fitting of the front curtains. Notice also how the bunched drapes have a better look compared with the previous pic.

 

Having gotten the look of the front fabric pieces worked out, I cut out the rear piece as a ‘frame’ to the same dimensions as the front to allow the background to be backlit, along with four nine inch pieces to connect the front and rear pieces. I added further lengths of MDF to reinforce and retain the shape, which were pinned, glued and clamped into place while the glue dried.

The floor and backdrop were created separately and made to be replaceable, as mentioned in the objectives I’d set out at the beginning of the post. I was particularly pleased with how the flooring turned out. For this, I used some thin sections of pine tongue and groove cladding, which I halved lengthways and cut to look like floorboards. Like the MDF, these were thin and soft enough to work on with a stanley knife.

In the following pic, you can see the early part of this process.

…and here a bit further along, after some staining and distressing…

The final touch, after finishing the weathered look, was to add nails to each ‘floorboard’. For these, I drilled holes in the corner of each ‘floorboard’ and then shortened individual panel pins by snapping them with pliers to create the ‘nails’ that were just shorter than the thickness of the cladding (7mm). This was painstaking, not to mention painful by the end of it, but I think the look it achieved was worth the effort. Here’s a bunch of the miniature ‘nails’ – there were 68 in all…

  

I also created slots that a paper backdrop on an MDF frame could slide into and created a paper backdrop with varying layers of translucence to create an interesting backlit effect.  For this, the sky was airbrushed blue for a smooth finish, as I wanted to avoid brushstrokes being accentuated by the backlight, having tried this at another time and not being happy with the look. I used a circular piece of paper as a mask while painting the sky to keep a central sun/moon circle of white.

I then created a stencil from black paper to spray the ground/landscape at the bottom of the background. As I didn’t want the ground to be backlit, I spray-mounted the piece of black paper that I’d cut away to make the stencil onto the back of the background paper, so it followed the line of the horizon and made the ground section opaque. The finishing touch was to cut a piece of thinner paper to the size of the background, with a circle cut out directly behind the sun/moon to allow the sun/moon to ‘shine’ by allowing more backlight through. The rest of the sky retained some translucence to give a gentler glow, with the opaque ground only lit from the front.

Here are the finished backdrop and floorboard sections removed from the completed stage…

…..the stage with the curtains partly open, showing the outer and inner sets of curtains, with the translucence of the inner curtains slightly visible, as well as the glow of the ‘sun’…

…and with the curtains open and the lighting dimmed to show the effect of the ambient light of the sky and the brighter circle of the sun:

There are a few other tweaks and additions that warrant a mention - e.g. I added a decorative bottom border to the stage front, the inner curtains have aluminium wire running along a seam at the bottom to give control when animating them frame by frame, the stage has holes to secure it to the set with screws or bolts, etc - but I hope that gives a fair idea of the build process and the way I approached it.

Next, I’ll be working on finishing the puppet, lighting and on a test run of the workflow for the green screen shooting and compositing.