Response to Feedback

I put the video on Padlet to get feedback: http://padlet.com/tjmov16/srtudz8frgc
I do agree with what people have said: 'The structure of the buildings are fantastic' - I put a lot of effort into making the different houses with their individual details and I am very pleased with the way they look.
I do not agree that this is a professional looking animation, though I did animate it professionally, with artificial white light and a white backdrop to perform as the sky. I do not think it looks professional because the first 1000 images were test shots and the lighting changes slightly on all the alternate frames of the long shots (which I cut from the rendered film).
Overall, though most of it is a smooth animation, I am not entirely pleased with the end result. Though the buildings do look pretty good.

My Animation

Barbara

This is my animation. I am not particularly pleased with the way it has turned out as the animation is not how I planned it to be.
I animated Barbara over 3 days, amounting to 2065 frames for the overall animation (some test shots).
As the iMacs we were working on and the shared area could not hold the 15 GB of photographs in their raw sizes (large), I had to import the first 1000 (most of which were test shots) onto the computer and animate 20 images at a time in iStomMotion. When I imported the images into iStopMotion the system crashed. I tried multiple methods of animating the 1000 images, such as moving to other computers and using different software but the computers still crashed.
I did not have time to re-size the images at home, which I realise may have worked better on the machines, and the computers in college could not function well enough to process the images to re-size them.
On some of the frames, the puppet had to be supported, so I had to individually airbrush each shot in Photoshop.

Monty Python

I decided to turn back to my original idea of creating a Terry Gilliam style animation using cut-outs. I initially wanted to help a friend on his animation but I took too much control over the project that it became my own and I feel I may have wasted his time. I created some shapes in Photoshop out of images found on Google (which I had edited the shape and colours of to replicate the Monty Python cartoons). Me and my friend spent a day trying to print the images as all the printers we tried were either b/w or broken, I cut out all the images and put them in the right shapes to resemble characters with different sections so as to operate the puppets without using too many replacements.

When I animated the sequence, we had to delete some work on the Mac to save the animation (though the whole animation wasn't very large and only lasted about 50 seconds). I animated it by moving each cutout a piece at a time for every frame in the movie, I had to concern the 3D environment in the 2D animation which can be difficult when animating one moving object behind a stationary cutout.
The animation itself I was very pleased by, I may even say it was the best animation I had ever done despite the low camera quality and lack of sound (to be added). The animation followed a man with the face of a friend of ours, veiny hands and woman's legs wearing a large black coat walking into shot. The man had magenta skin and made three loud chicken noises before laying a large oversized egg which propelled the character into the air and out of shot. The egg was still but occasionally wobbled and then cracked open (the cracks were drawn using a biro pen). When the egg shattered, an even larger head (of another friend) emerged with stumpy baby legs and sidestepped out of shot while making odd animal noises with it's mouth. The black coated man flew through the sky and knocked down a
few clouds as if they were held up by string (the smoothness of the animation, particularly in the way the head creature walked and squawked and as the clouds fell over was impressive even to me). The man crashed down in the path of the head creature, which walked up to the man and ate his head and shoulder before himself collapsing to the ground. It was the quality of the animation in the last scene alone that I was particularly impressed by - the way the man landed, the head walked and the way it chewed it's food (and the bite marks left on the man).
Unfortunately after i had rendered the file into a playable video format, someone deleted both the animation and the exported movie at some point not long after, I don't know who and why but it meant that I could no longer use my new animation.

Barbara (again)

I took the animated first 1000 test shots and edited them into a short 40 second short film using Adobe Premiere. I did not have any sound for the animation because I didn't think I would be using it, so I just rendered some royalty free music over the edit, added some sound effects (not as much as was needed) and recorded the voice of the character shouting Barbara (which the voice actor had forgot, meaning the final result is only a guess at the voice and not the actual voice itself).
The reason the character of Barbara has such huge legs is because the man is shouting 'Barbara! You're taller than me!' among other insults and various pines.

The Puppet

I used wire to create the basic armature for the puppet. It stands about 6" tall as it is meant to be a short character who is jealous of Barbera's height.
The design of the character is based loosely on the paddington bear puppet with influence from Tim Burton's animations. The design choice came about as in my previous animation project: 'Being fr the Benefit of Mr. Kite!' (abandoned) the characters were initially inspired by the artistic style of Nick Park and Aardman Animations but I decided to alter them by using fabric to produce certain clothing, like coats or scarves - eventually some characters consisted entirely of material clothing with plasticine used only for flesh.

The plasticine I used was Newplast, I used this as it is a high quality product and is highly reliable. It is not too oily and therefore gives a matte look and is easy to animate. It is also the sole brand used by Aardman animations among many other industry professionals.

Unlike other puppets I've made, I produced this one completely naked and built the costume up around it.
The costume is a pinstripe suit, recycled from an old pinstripe skirt and the shirt is made from curtain material. I made four different shapes for the shirt and glued them onto the torso. The trousers are sewn, I made the two legs longer than the legs of the puppet to emphasise his lack of height. The trousers were glued to the back and hidden under the shirt. The blazer was also sewn, the edges were glued to save time but the shoulders and arms were joined with needle and thread. Once dressed, the character looked convincing.

Set Update

 Since the initial design for the set, I have made some changes. Though I still want the animation to take place on a street; I want to make it a completely white street.

This comes after seeing the sets used in the original Paddington Bear series, where they would be completely white (presumably made from foam-board or card) to save time and money.

I think that having a plain white set with only the minor details such as windows and doors to be drawn with pen and ink is a much better idea than trying to replicate an actual street using printed cartridge paper and cardboard cutouts. I think this because not only will it be a direct reference to Paddington Bear, but it will also be a lot cheaper to produce and it will be more aesthetically pleasing.

I am making the set from cardboard with sheets of thick A4 paper stuck on using strong sticky-back tape (like what they used to tell you to use in Blue Peter all the time). Measurements for windows and doors are marked out thinly with a pencil and then drawn on with pen. The windowsill and doorstep are made using cardboard cutouts with the edges drawn in pen also, this gives them a shadow which in turn gives the set more depth.

The details are drawn roughly and with crude lines with little care for neatness, itself reminiscent of the artwork by Tim Burton and low budget cartoons of the 1960s-90s.

The Main action I wanted to take place on some steps outside the house. The steps were made from a thin cardboard with paper stuck to the alternate side where the measurements were marked out. They were held together with masking tape and glued on the inside with hot glue, the result is better than I expected as I took my time particularly on the stairs.

The door is made with a thicker cardboard, I cut the indents with a scalpel and glued paper to the back to make it 3D. The handle consisted of two cardboard pieces which were carefully cut to scale. All the edges were drawn with pen so as not to make it out of place with the rest of the set.

Five additional smaller houses were made and glued to cardboard boxes, the smaller houses give a forced perspective making the street look larger than it actually is.

To the main houses I have added three extra windows on the second level and I added a roof also

Animation Background

I want the street set to look similar to this

I wanted the character to be begging from the street so I drew a sketch of how I wanted it to look with plans of the materials I need and the size of the set parts. I think if I do the animation at home rather than in-college, I can easily control the lighting and will have more control over the storage of the plasticine character and the set. I also have a large collection of props and set pieces from previous animations, along with additional characters I can use in the background and can use to make the set larger.

Animation Idea

My Ideas

I want to animate 'Barbara,' an impression my brother does about someone who gets locked out of her home and begs for the love of Barbara. I plan to animate this with claymation as I have made dozens of plasticine models in the past and spent 3 years planning on a claymation series (until I scrapped it). The animation would take place on a street, outside a front-door. It would be 30-60 seconds in length and would feature only a voice recording of the Barbara impression as performed by my brother. The character would be produced much in the style of the Wallace and Gromit characters (to draw a similarity, as I will be using my own artistic style) - the mouth replacements would be based on Rex the Runt as this would be easier and quicker to use.

My second idea would be to animate a section from a podcast / radio show / stand-up performance, much the way that Chris Salt does with Lego. I would either animate this with Claymation or Lego - I could animate a section of the Adam and Joe podcast or a part of an Eddie Izzard performance, like the famous Lego Star Wars Canteen sketch.

Alternately, I would like to try cut-out animation and produce a sketch somewhat similar to Terry Gilliam's from the 60s, 70s and 80s - though I would prefer to use plasticine as I have had more experience using it.

Stop Motion Animation

This is my blog on the history of stop motion animation, it ranges from the earliest forms of animation, through it's developments in the 20th century to the present day. It features different forms of Stop Motion including; pixilation (the use of human puppets in animation), Time-Lapse, Cell and Claymation.