Lip-Cinched

Hi folks,

We covered dialog/lip sync this week (face only) so I decided to make my character big and heavy, with no arms or legs.

I had fun on this one. We were encouraged to set the camera a few feet back from the animation stage, and I remembered that I used to have close-up diopters for just that purpose (but never used them because they flattened the image).

I'm not sure how to get around that, but I managed this assignment with the camera zoomed in as far as it would go (read: just barely!)

So, this was the last assignment before the big project, which I'll have more than a week to do (although there are still due dates on each part of it).

At any rate, I'm having an absolute blast. This is the first time I ever smoothed the lips into the head for a seamless appearance. The clay is not the usual stuff I use so that presented a challenge with what I wanted to do. The main thing was that when you have a hollow, and you're animating something in front of it, you risk pushing it further and further into the hollow. In the case of clay, it will stick and you'll never pull it out. The solution I came up with was to animate the mouth going wide on a vowel and then ripping the lip flap off, re-sculpting it by teasing it back into the same approximate shape, and smoothing it back into the bottom of the head where the chin would be. Then I just luck it buckle in some more, as I knew I had only a few more words to do before the big finish.

I have not posted all of the videos from class, but you can find them on my Youtube channel or under Don Carlson animator. Kind of cool that the other videos I worked on are still up, so you can see/listen to stuff I've done for friends' films on that link.

Cheers!

Back 2 Skool

WHEW! What a few months it's been.

I'm going to school and learning from the absolute masters of clay animation, got a job as a film editor (my first-ever studio experience). So, things are moving pretty well along. :-) In less than two months I have learned some of the basics I didn't know about (righting a puppet, mid-walk, levering limbs), and picked up a few techniques I've always wanted to know (sculpting in the marbled style, morphing, facial expressions, and lip sync. Time to set some new goals, because I have accomplished everything I ever set out to DO!  This is adequate proof that if you believe in yourself, know what you want, and work hard to get it, you can do anything. For me, it took 17 years to finally realize that childhood dream, but for you it might not take as long...Just keep at it. At any rate,  I am positively giddy with enthusiasm for school and it's like being a kid again, meeting all these talented artists and learning with the next generation of stop motion animators!

Here's a little morph I cobbled together with spare parts, tape, and clay: