finished felting Bertie, began making his new camera today. you can see old bertie in the background of the first photo, haha. i suppose i should take a proper comparison picture.

just a sketch. my teachers kept asking me if i didn't think the camera should have magical properties, so i drew him reaching into the camera, perhaps he'd store things in there. but i think the camera is just a camera, and that is how he carries it with him.

puppet photo dump: Bertie 2.0

i've been trying to put photos of my puppet's progress on my tumblr account more often, and i just realized that i haven't put any of Bertie 2.0's photos on my preferred site, blogger. shame on me! he's going really well, though very slowly (of course).
so here's the work i've been doing for the past 2 weeks:

 (his head is mostly balsa wood, but the face is sculpted magic-sculpt. shape of the head, very important. which i learned the first time around because his profile was particularly unattractive lol)

(his head before it was fully refined/sanded)

~foam

 (see? nice profile ^^)

embedding a small hex nut into his hand so i can secure a little camera to it while shooting

 and finally, this is where i am right now.

today i finished the painting! looks a lot nicer than Bertie 1.0, doesn't it, haha. anxious to get started on the felting, because i'm probably about 3 days behind schedule right now, on top of being on a pretty rushed schedule. 

he won't look permanently surprised in the film. i'll be using clay+sculpey+wax mix to make animatable eyelids, like last time, haha. avoiding that part for now since it'll just get dirty, anyway. 

his left eye doesn't move very well...i've learned my lesson, lol (embedded the eyeballs in a very hard, air-drying material. not such a good idea). if i make another puppet after i graduate that needs moving eyes....must definitely have soft eye sockets. i avoided trying silicon sockets because i had never made a mold or casted anything before, and i thought that would be an extra week of testing...an extra week i didn't have. but since the function is really important, it would probably have been worth putting in the time, lol.

hindsight...so clear. hope everyone is staying warm! gonna be freezing in new england the next few days. like a high of 20 degrees F freezing, lol.

worryworry

i think the guest lecturer really scared me today. he was really great, but amped up my already-high anxiety levels about post-graduation to like...level 500. especially because he was really knowledgeable about the stop motion industry/community.
and i've been thinking recently about how i've always wanted to do what i want to do, because now, i can. and the greatest freedom is to make your own work.
i guess it becomes a tricky balance of needs/wants/stubbornness/ambition. how far you're willing to compromise comfort for the sake of keeping your soul happy.

anyways, before i get any more emo (LOL), i couldn't sleep, so i drew this. emo thing. pardon my brain, lol.

on a happier note, my senior film is coming along really well! i've been trying really hard to be honest with myself, and i think it's paying off.

zzzz~

new reels

small update on my anajkim.com website: for convenience purposes, i had to change my website a little...not quite as pretty as it was before, but now that it's through blogger, i can make any quick changes as i see fit, when i see fit.

but, the good news is that i have two new reels! woo~ they are on my site, but i've put them here, too.
one for stop motion, and one for 2D.

the 2D is not amazing... but i enjoyed making each of the pieces, so...hopefully other people can enjoy watching. i found last year that animating 2D for time periods longer than 4 hours a day reallyreally sucks the fun out of it for me. but i enjoyed doing the animation-a-day exercises a lot. you stop analyzing everything and the less sense it makes the more enjoyable it is, haha.

would appreciate any feedback!

Spring 2013 Stop Motion Reel from Ana Kim on Vimeo.

Spring 2013 2D Reel from Ana Kim on Vimeo.


also, two photos from studio today. i FINALLY got around to going full steam on my film, and i made a new armature drawing. i couldn't figure out why the large sketches were so ugly compared to the small ones, and i did some quick offhand measuring, and the proportions were totally off. i think the new drawings make a lot more visual sense.
Bertie is now about an inch taller than previously.

goal

i'm trying to pay attention to makes me happy when i'm drawing, and what makes me happy to see in other peoples' work. 

anyways, here is a morning doodle. here's to improvement! i suppose i should put them in an action...

2013

have been in a bit of a funk recently, but seeing as today is the first day of the new year, i thought what the hell.

TRACKPAD ART, OH YEAHhh.

the past two weeks at home were clunky, for lack of a better word. i spent most of it bumming at home, dealing with the aftermath of wisdom teeth surgery, and then worrying about the new year. senior film,  getting a job, getting dumped into the open water. LOL. since. i am graduating, aha!

i was sort of avoiding making anything, letting anxiety get the best of me.

but there's always something oddly liberating about using limited means. 

a happy new year to you all :)