Mini Dober Ship Production Shots

Hey Guys,



Shel here with some progress pics on Dober's Mini Ship. FUN, FUN FUN!! I am making mini ships for the space battle that will open the film (we'll be shooting this sequence last, and I tell ya, it's going to be very EXCITING when we get there!!!).

It's been so fun make the small ships after having learned on the big versions, and I am grateful to Jeff Set Master Cross for all he taught me when we made the big ones.


I started with taking pics of the big ship and scaling them down in photo shop to the size we want (about 12" across). Then I could take my measurements right off the print outs:



1/4" plywood base structure, hot glued together.....


Blue foam glued on and shaped....

Brass tubing for connecting to the rig:

The Garage is all about HOT ANIMATION SETS right now, so the Workshop is on the porch, the kitchen table, the living room, etc. (my sisters in New York and Virginia got FEET of snow this day, so it was especially fun to tell them I was working outside in a tank top!):

Fitting together the various wings and engines:

Sorting through "Greeble":

GOOP!:

Sanding (fine white dust all over the living room!):

Ready to assemble:

My new cordless DREMEL, which I love with all my heart (awesome x-mas present from composer, yaughtsman, etc. Robert Litton and invaluable art assistant Bridget Dash)

Bridget helping to paint the engine cap doodads:

Practice flight:

Now I'm working on the BUCK for the windshield.....lots of trial and error here, I watched Justin's brother Todd make the bucks for the big ships and he made it look so easy .... ha! I'll post about that when I've figured it out.....we need the windshield to come off and on easily so Justin can animate the little guys inside, which is just the kind of puzzle that makes my brain very happy.

I've also got a great start on the Flea's ship and will post those pics soon.

In the meantime Justin is making MOVIE MAGIC in the garage most nights......before we started this film we said we would try to make sure he slept this time, but he's just way too excited to sleep and last week pumped out 15 seconds! (5 seconds OVER our 10 second goal per week.) He did decide to take a week off animating after this sequence is done (1 more shot!!), so he can focus on organizing the garage (untangling cords and figuring out a more ergonomic computer configuration), figuring out the pipeline for the 3D part, and getting the shots onto my editing computer so i can start editing ........and maybe sleep a little? we'll see how that goes.....