Much more of Zeke's project!

In all this time I haven't blogged, I've also been doing more work for Zeke, finally helping him with his set when I can.

The first thing he asked me to do was to help with the papier-mâché, giving the base a bit more 3 dimensional quality.

When that was done, the sides of the set were painted green, as Zeke built a maquette for the church. After that we started to paint the pathway with a brown colour, mixed with granulated sugar, which gives the floor more texture. The path has changed colour a lot of times since then, but it's worth it to get it right.

Another job I was given was to make some gravestones to go into the grassy areas. I cut these shapes just out of foam board, and then they were also given a coat of the sugar paint, but black, then painted grey, then highlighted light grey, finally with white text painted on them.

Above shows some of the trees. They've been made with wire and foil, then covered in plasticine, except for the first one which was super sculpy. The plasticine worked just as well so he continued with that. The plasticine was then sculpted, undercoated black, then built up dry brushing coats of brown all the way to a few white highlights.

This is a photo of the church Zeke has built midway. The roofs are all balsa wood, and the main sculpt is foam board, covered in sculpted plasticine, painted similarly to the gravestones. Since then he has finished the church, and is moving on to some other things. We still have a few more trees to do, and then we can finish up this set. It already looks great and it's not even finished yet, so we'll see how it looks when it's done!

A glorious return!

Hey it's been a LONG time since I blogged, so I best get on it. Lots has happened.

Firstly the props are almost finished for the cobweb hotel set. The set is now finished (painted, and the archway added) and I have a bunch of pictures for it, including the one with Daryl destroying the set so we could move it to a different room, which was heartbreaking!

Also, as seen above, it looks very nice under the light! Since that photo we have set up the lighting ready for animation though.

The webs for the set are now in production. Though at one point, we suspected we would be using cotton wool, but I think this just kicked people into gear to get things done properly. The pens on the sides of the set by Nicola have really brought out the set too. 

The puppets are all in production too, some are being created, and some are already cast. The majority is made out of foam latex, although the spider is being made from sculpted foam and latex glue except from the hands. This is being kept very much under wraps from lily though! 

Shane has done a brilliant job on the tokens for the room numbers, using the laser cutter. And his webs look so much nicer than before!

Me and dan have recently been writing up a list for the class to break up, so that we can split the animation between us, but it's exciting, soon we should be able to start animating!

Zeke's project progression

Just a quick post I'm putting up to tell you that the storyboards are finished!

If you'd like to see them in full, plus everything else within Zeke's project, his URL is here:
http://zekeares-animationcreation.blogspot.com/

Storyboarding

Over the weekend, in the few bits of time I've had spare, I've started on the storyboards for the war of the world's project. Here are just a couple pictures, although I guess they're just a teaser really!

Assistant Animator

The Assistant Animator project has been announced, and I have already started to help out my friend and colleague Zeke with his production of War of the Worlds. We've already been chatting about various ideas he has, and I am drawing up a storyboard for him over this next week. I will also be helping him out with set-building. I'm really excited about this, as I love his previous sets, and am hoping to learn a lot from him.

Set almost built!

It's been a lazy few weeks during christmas, but I've gotten stuck back into the set to finish it. With the ease into university again at the start of term, it has given me plenty of time to get it done.

 After me, shane and dan finished glueing on the final pieces of the set, we continued painting, and me Dan and Lily got a fully dark brown coat on, which worked very nicely.

Once the dark colour had dried, me and Dan moved on to the dry-brushing, which was finished quite quickly but took a few days of labour! We then made the archway over the main area, and gunked it overnight. 

Since this last photo, the set has been completed, and props are now in progress. I personally am producing a glue pot to be used. Let's hope it comes out nicely!

More painting!

I managed to get some better pictures of the finished colour scheme here, all ready to be re-built.

It's got a very orangey-yellowy look to it, which I like. The yellow has really given it some depth as well.

I've spent about 4 or 5 hours painting the main set also, which has now halfway to being primary coated. There are a lot of white gaps, but these will be filled in with the second, watered down coat.

Hopefully more to come tomorrow too!