Spring Semester Junior Project

An update at last! Spring semester at RISD started only 3 weeks ago, but in that time I've had to come up with an animation project to work on for the remainder of the semester. I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted to do a 2D animation or stopmotion animation, but in the end, I must have wanted to do stopmotion the most. Luckily I'm taking character animation class too....get my handdrawn inclinations taken care of.
Here are some process work photos, sketches, etc.

he (unnamed for now) went through several revisions, but i was happiest with this design

copperwire hands covered with sports tape, later shown after being dipped in latex a couple times. the armature is made from twisted aluminum wire, brass tubing cut down to size, and propoxy20. and hexnuts in the feet, for tie downs.

 

separate super sculpey head, sculpted/baked around aluminum foil

foam surgery time.

 

I used spray paint for the first time (on puppet head). That was exciting.

rough pastel concept sketch for the forest. white bark, blue foliage.

tree armature!

 this little tree is just a prototype, since i've never built this sort of thing before. It has one tiedown nut held together with propoxy20 at the base of the trunk. For the full scale tree-puppet I'll probably use 2-3 tie downs on the ends of the roots so I can have it lift up and move on its own, if I want.

I used wire and foam instead of a hard material because it's going to interact (not sure if it'll be one tree or the whole forest) with the other character.

 I'll post a picture of the finished model soon! Will be covering it with fabric, stuffing, and needlepins.

 
I'm honing down the "story" idea as I work on the construction. I think it will not be like a traditional narrative (what I usually default to), but the basic idea is to explore the relationship between my two characters.

My characters are a forest spirit whose job/function it is to repair cut/bleeding trees, and the forest itself.