Junior Project: update 3

one last update before the animating begins! FINALLY. took me half the semester to finish these guys. over the past few days i've been setting up my shooting space.

continuing on from last update, i made a new balsa base (taller) and with a friend's suggestion, i used 3 twisted-aluminum columns as the spine

here's how the size compares to my first puppet

  i began adding foam to the armature. i just cut foam pieces into shape and used a ton of rubber cement. i won't be touching that stuff for a while...very bad for you!

 tada! here i was building up the branches

 i painted the tree black first, so the undertones would be dark

 then i brushed a few layers of white acrylic on top

 doesn't look like foam anymore, huh?

 here's a close up of my first puppet. i tried to have the aesthetics as similar as possible, meaning having a layered, tactile quality

 i don't think i posted his face up close after coloring. i used acrylic paint and then crushed pastel for the cheeks/nose. sprayed all dat with matte acrylic medium spray.

 and his cape! not really a cape, but i don't know what else to call it. back growth sounds terrifying.

 one day i found a little sign on my closet-studio door. must be official now.

 interior of closet-studio. i love it for it's privacy (only i has the key!), but it has absolutely not ventilation....

 the leaves are just hand ripped paper. i put a little dab of glue gun and placed a needle pin. then i would sandwich with another piece of paper.

 then i just stuck the stuff in the foam

 and finally, after 3 attempts, tree complete!!

you can see i painted the plywood base with chroma key paint. there's a strong green reflection, but apparently it's pretty painless to deal with in aftereffects. today i'm going to be painting large foamcore sheets for the background and paint it all with the chroma key paint, too. i will post some background compositing ideas later...not quite sure what that'll be yet...

AND THEN. AND THEN ANIMATING  BEGINS. 

i should perhaps...........get to a solid storyboard now. will post about that next time! i only recently pinned down a "narrative," but my teachers were right. as long as you focus on what is essential, in my case it was the development of characters, the rest will follow.

oh! on last thing. while i was making the tree, for some reason, the name Julia popped into mind. i'm a big namer, i like to name inanimate objects, and for animation, it helps me a lot to have a name to start attaching more character details to.  in fall semester, i named my bird-human girl (though people think it's male haha) Bridget because i was referencing Bridget Jones. she seemed easily irritable. for Julia tree i'm thinking someone romantic, who doesn't think too practically, a little flirty. apologies for anyone out there named Julia if you take offense, haha. HAVE A GOOD DAY.