Carlito is ALIVE! Shot 4 is happenin.

Justin here.....

so after 2 FAILed starts.....I officially am into shot 4.{The Toghguy Entrance}
Carlito has made his way across the gate and is officially checking out Gerald the dog. The Shot is a pretty closeup shot with a pan across the hallway.

Its not my favorite shot.....but I do like it...and its only half way animated.
A couple of more key moments and Ill have it in the bag.

The reason I failed the first 2 runs was that I was trying to do a walk that would have some major funk to it.....totally unique to Carlito.I started by drawing out some key poses on paper which looked good.... but it ended up looking way to exagerated in stopmotion land.....and a little bit unbelievable.

I toned it down on my second attempt but....it still didnt look right..Its amazing what you can get away with in 2d versus , stopmo or CG....I think of run cycles like ed , ED and Eddie on cartoon network. They are soooooooo PUSHED...super funny and completely off balance. If I do this in stop mo it looks almost like bad animation or ultra unbelievable....without balance.

so For last night I went with a completely new animation respecting who the character is and his god givin proportions. This worked out and will be in the final film.

Heres some quick images of Carlito.



jriggity

Dogs { FIRST WALK } Test and tryouts

Hey guys......justin here.

I created this test walk for My dog character sunday night while shel animated her Pull test using {Victoria Wealthington}. The Test was to see How the foam puppet moved and felt. To see if He could sit down even with a foam belly. I am glad to say that he passed both tests and is now approved for production.

So monday night I spent the late night setting up and designing the movement for my latest shot. The { Toughguys Entrance}

I am excited as always in using these puppets.The shot will be about 10 seconds of animation and will consist of the Skinny Toughguy{Carlito} walking ...into frame...hopefully with personality.... then calling in the Toughguy Fat {Manny} to have a closer look.

I as always have a big opporotunity to Create personality in their walks and hope to accomplish it.

hope to finish this week...by thursday night.



jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION - pull test

check out my new pull test at vimeo:






pull test on Vimeo


shel here: skinny victoria wealthington doesn't know her own strength in my latest animation test. i was practicing the action of pulling and pup sort of lost his head but we all tried to make the most of it and he doesn't seem to mind too much. plus i got to practice falling as well! (okay, yes, i noticed it too, i called me and the puppets "we".....i'm beyond saving!!)

{Shot 3} Rich Sequence done ! {1minuet in Can}

Hey there....

I finished the Rich couple entrance and exit on wednesday evening...I stayed up extra late to finish....and it turned out really cool!

I was so excited to take the frames to work with me that day and process them so I could see what I had created..It ended up being about {23 seconds of character animation}

I am now setting up for some quick dog puppet tests....which I will share with you guys...before I start monday on The {Toughguys Entrance}....Its all really happening now....I have an official minuet of Final animation for this film which is unbelieveable.

more to come!

jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION - jump timing test

for this test i was lazer focused on timing, i wanted to see if i could get the timing of the jump without editing any frames in post. on my last jump test i realized (while editing out alot of frames afterward to make the airtime look right) that i was missing some basic animation timing concepts. so the good news is my timing experience improved here. but i have to say i'm really annoyed with the archs in this piece (especially in the take off and landing), but as i go over it frame by frame i can see where it got weird, so it's all good.... stuff to work on in my next test. i have a rediculously ambitious push/pull test in mind -- i'm hoping to get started on it tonight and should be done with it in oh, say.....a year?! (HA! that was a joke--the scary thing is that in stop mo time i could've been totally serious!) -- HEAVE HO!

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:173199

{Dorky Dad} and the Internet

Hey there....

I recently was told that {Dorky Dad} is on the Youtube....This is a Film I created in 2003. Its pretty cool that somebody liked it enough to throw it up there.

The version is pretty crappy so I added my own thats a Higher Quality version.
Watching this like looking at any Older art work is a bit painfull but....it still
holds a warm spot in my heart.... so I will share with you.

All art was created by myself....except for the voiceover....My family helped me on that one.

jriggity




Hey there,

Hard workin Rich Folks

Hey guys,

Im on Rich Couple Entrance animation....{DAY 4}...

Tuesday Night Is date night for me and Shel. Baby sitting and a night alone............a luxury and sanity helper I enjoy weekly.

I am imagineing it will take me about 2 more full nights to finish this sequence.
So Ill be back in the garage for {night 5} on wednesday....

jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION -just-a-jump test2

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:169295

shel here with another jump test. this time just a jump (no killer fruit attacks). justin suggested i work on archs, posing and timing. learned alot on this test and i like how it came out but i did alot of editing in post (cutting unnessary frames mostly), the cool part is that editing the frames really helped me to understand more about how timing works in stop motion (less pictures, bigger increments between poses=faster movement/more pics, smaller increments between poses=slower movement). so i'm going to do another jump test (before i play with a pushing and pulling test), to see if i can get the timing how i want it without too much editing. i left the wires in again, cuz it's just an exercise, they are pretty easy to take out in photo shop though (like in the picture above).

Shot 2 Finished and another {NEW Character}

Well .....Last Night I finished another shot.....I was supposed to start the Rich People entrance but realized {Thanks to my producer Shel} that it would require a camera change....so

I did one of the other shots that keeps the same cam set up.......only thing I wasnt prepared for was....I needed a new character. ....{a Puppie} ....this now makes 10 characters in this Cartoon.

That means if I was in school and I pitched this Film to a teacher....He or she would Officially slap me and Say {"You will never Finishe This"} Ha?!! I know I will.....its just an obsene ammount of chars ..

Creating this puppie was an excersize in frustration~~ I learned somthing though{AGAIN}......Things always move smoother when you have a clear idea and a direction......I floundered all over the place trying to make the puppie....fail ,fail , fail.....AAAAAAARRRHhh!!!

I just stepped back.........got a clear idea....BINGO....it all just happened.........

So i finish the puppie ......and slammed right into shooting.....it was a pretty simple shot

just the little girl leaving the pound with a puppie in her arms.

now On the the next mammoth...{The Rich Entrance}my x sheet is done.....I just need to refresh my mind on the choreography....and its go for Wed night.

jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION - JUMP TEST

shel again:

This is a jumping test i did as a part of the puppet training exercises over on stopmoshorts.com.

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:166938

Justin gave me some good feedback so I decided to do another jump test later this week, with no rolling fruit or eyebrow acting, just a plain old jump, so i can work on some of the finer points of the action. Then I'd like to try a push/pull test.....then a running test....then i want to design and make my own puppet (that will be completely new territory for me!).....then I'd like to start playing with my puppet....then, well, actually, way before then i really will have to get serious about the interior pound cage set and our next to last set--a down the hall view with a door that opens for real--hmmmmm. We are making a film after all, and Justin is cruising right along with his shot list. (Actually Justin is not a listy sort of guy, but list or no, he is CRUISING!)

THE LATEST IN PUPPY FASHION AND FUNCTION

Our most recent puppy puppets.

Shel here: Finished these three guys, all with slightly different foam consistency and armatures to help with different movements. They aren't wearing their collars or feet in this pic. Their body’s are foam and the heads are clay. Justin would like this guy to have lots of squash and stretch and in (many, many) past puppy incarnations, we've found that what has worked in the way we’ve foamed the people puppets is too limiting for the dogs. The ones Justin made out of clay are too time consuming and hassle-y to be reforming in the middle of a shoot, and they are really heavy which is awkward rigging-wise when the dog jumps around. So after aproximately one million discarded unusable versions, we are hoping these guys will work out. After Justin gets his next shot in the can (so to speak) he’ll do a puppy test to see if these guys work for the movement he has in mind. Keep your fingers crossed cuz if they don’t work...... ummm, if they don't work...... uuhhhh.....???

Sword Pull - Sick Day

Well........ Heres a test I threw together for my sick day yesterday. I had a nice fever and a nasty cough, sore throat. I hate being sick.....

so heres the story of this anim......I told myself I would construct a set as quickly and sloppily as possible...{20- 30 minuets}....and create a cool armor which will fake a new character for a new world....{Im bored of all my tests having the same backgrounds}...................that all went well....so

........It started with a headache and the toughguy skinny........I start animating and about 100 frames in his leg broke and I had to scrap the shoot.....That should have been a sign...

so next day Im totally sick......stay home from work.....i get bored and cant stop thinking about the anim.....I decide to make Poundworker the new knight.....I swap out some armor that wasnt created for his body and started animating.......it all was fairly smoothe.....except I had a really hard time concentrating...I was really working as fast as I could...{shows in the sloppy arcs}..........I would go in and out of fever...especially under the hot lights.

but I told myself this is just for fun.....its not your film....so dont sweat it.

and this is what I have......a fun test...to share with you guys....and a new experiment in speed and fever animating.

here it is......

http://www.animationrasch.com/STOPMOTESTS/SwordPullsfxsm.zip

for some reason....when I exported it to small size it became very bright....if any of you guys know of this problem...please let me know.

jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION - heavy fruit

here's my heavy lift test.

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:164269

had lots of fun with this one, tried really really hard to smooth out the chunks and take it little itty bits at a time.....and it's still not all that smooth. dannggg! how itsy bitsy can you get?!?

LIKE OLD FRIENDS

This is a pic from Michael Granberry's hilarious stop mo series Adventures with the Ambersons.

Hey ya’ll, Shel here….. still realin’ from our big, inspirational, stop mo-filled day yesterday over at Michael Granberry’s RED HATCHET FILMS’ studios. (I use the word “studios” in that extra special way that means working where you live.) It was really cool to see someone else doing it all from the house, fun and familiar to see sets in the corners, puppets on the shelves, armature wire, et al in the cupbards (I didn’t actually look at the puppets in the fridge, but I felt right at home knowing they were there). Though I have to say that Michael’s style of makin movies at home is a lot neater than we’ve managed!!

Michael is so gracious and open and enthusiastic it felt like we've known him forever, it was more like catching up with an old friend then meeting him for the first time. We dorked out on Stop Mo musings over delicious Indian food. We got to see (and hold!) a bunch of puppets from Charlie’s Wish, the crazy cool creatures from From Beyond, and Adventures with the Ambersons (the Amberson dinosaurs were an especially big hit with our 5 year old daughter, Aedon). Most cool of all we got private screenings of both From Beyond and the brand spanking new directors cut of Adventures with the Ambersons, Episode 2. (Both really cool and inspiring pieces…..can’t wait to see Adventures with the Ambersons, Episode 3!). Since we only have experience with the foam latex puppets, it was like magic to see what he’s done with wire/cotton/gue stuff/clay and paint. And it’s incredible what he’s done with foam board too! I really could have spent hours just looking at his sets and puppets.

It’s mind boggling and inspiring to see how much Michael has done in such a short amount of time (2 years: a zillion shorts, a couple music videos, and a series!?!) and where following his passion has lead him. And it’s especially cool to have made a new friend.

You can see some of it yourself if you check out Michael’s blog RED HATCHET FILMS at

http://redhatchetfilms.blogspot.com/

36 seconds and a Rolling Stone!!!!

First Shot is in the can!!!!!! It took 5 nights of animation -1 restart - to get........ but its there and the ball {or BOULDER as far as the film is concerned} is rolling. I animated the Poundworker Entrance which is one of 4 sequences at the {dogs POV}Hallway set. I am super happy to finally say I'm officially animating my film for real.


I have started picking out all the best audio takes for the next Sequence{Rich couple}. I should have it ready for a start this thursday night or sunday evening. Another Big Sequence.

After finishing this marathon of character animation{36 seconds} I am rewarding myself with a Movie Night and a fun quick test for the Animation excersizes over at {stop mo shorts}



I hope to start the lift and finish tonight....I Hope? Ha!

jriggity