Collaborations and Complications

A quick doodle of me, Raul and Tito. 

My part on Kubo and The Two Strings is now complete. What started as a three month temp position stretched into a year's worth of crazy fun times - wrapping up with my department's Academy Award win! I have now rolled directly onto the next film.

I had to take a week off though right at the end of January due to sciatica. For those of you not familiar with it...please continue avoiding it if you can. Take care of your body. Hydrate with water. Be mindful of what you eat. Don't skimp on stretch breaks. Stand as much as you sit and sit with good posture. Yoga and hiking are awesome. You do have time for these kinds of things. This might sound a little lecture-y, but seriously SCIATICA IS EVIL. 

Post-CTN I was approached by fellow Oatley Academy students to participate in a unique collaboration opportunity. Jessie Kate Patterson, Maria Kercher, Blythe Russo, and Gwyn Conaway Bennison are my partners in crime for this crazy costume adventure! I look forward to sharing more about that project later. ;)

Another thing greatly occupying my mind of late is a different kind of collaboration. Last year Raul Ramos proposed on my birthday and of course I said yes. After debating it we've set our ideal date a year from now and are in planning mode. My dress has been purchased. Venues are narrowed down for tours and will be hopefully booked by the end of the month. And the invite list is more or less finished...provided people stop dying. :(

We have also been discussing the issue of "co-branding." This would obviously apply to the big event, but include other events where we display or attend as a unit - such as our shared table at CTN. With our different areas of interest and specialty, it would visually make sense of us together as a unit. If we showing separately then we wouldn't need to pack everything along - we'd still have our own self-branded things. Raul's been working especially hard to streamline his presentation lately. But mine is another matter entirely.

This upcoming status change brings the chance to really do some necessary tweaking - starting with my name. For as long as I could write, my name has been a problem. When small I never dreamed of the various details involved with fancy weddings and such...I dreamed of ditching my needlessly complicated name for something simple or at least less likely to be butchered by everyone and their "standardized" software. But now that I've gotten traction - my first movie credit for one - should I change it? The arguments for and against are sometimes heated and I'm not looking externally for answers - this is definitely a personal decision I trust others to respect once I've made it - but it is certainly something I've been struggling with more than I thought I ever would.

Can we just fast forward to the part when I get to leave for the honeymoon please??

The Life of Cut Paper

In which I ponder = coherently or not = the connections and nuances of my favorite art forms:

When I think about stop motion animation as a type of performance art, I am of course going to starting drawing some interesting comparisons: Various forms of Japanese theater influenced OniSan, including the puppet-based Bunraku.

Bunraku dates back to the late 1600s - in Osaka - and is a combination of musicians, chanters and puppeteers. That's not too far off of how we consume stop motion today - with a soundtrack, voice actor narration and animators.

Of course we see everyone on stage during a Bunraku performance, but to varying degrees we ignore their presence. For the Boxtrolls end titles we get to see Travis Knight animating in lightening speed as the characters wax philosophical about the nature of freewill - the reverse of the original intent to keep the puppeteers hidden.

Bunraku puppets utilize three actors that must be in perfect coordination for the performance. Some stop motion puppets can be acted by several different animators - but they all have to work together to make that character believable as one person.

The puppets themselves in Bunraku can be very simple and very elaborate. Some of my favorites are those beautiful ladies that have face mechanisms which reveal them to be scary demons. A particularly interesting trick they use on many female heads is a pin on the corner of their mouth - so they can bite their sleeve.

Stop motion puppets are getting more and more advanced, with tricks like Neil's belly-mover in ParaNorman or the watch-like facial mechanics in Corpse Bride. I was very impressed with the glow of the Boxtrolls' eyes - when you snap the faceplate off it breaks the circuit and the eyes dim, but when you snap the faceplate back on the circuit completes and Ta Da! Glowing eyes!!

What other connections do you see? How do your favorite mediums compare or contrast? 

OAnniversary: Moving Right Along

It was this month, two years ago now, that I reached a pretty serious low in terms of my creative life. I had been graduated from school for a year so of course the loans were in full force, transitioning from one job to another - neither within my field and no way into the field I wanted to be in, I didn’t have many friends and what friends I had I was struggling to keep, and my family was two states away - as much as I wanted to move home I couldn’t, mainly because my room was already taken. This put me into a compulsive loop. I could not get past the first 8 pages of anything before starting over. Again and again until I just didn’t care to do it anymore. I went to work, I came home and I went to bed. My brain just went numb.

It was this month, two years ago now, that I was introduced to Chris Oatley’s podcasts. I hadn’t really been into podcasts before then, and I suddenly found them essential to working efficiently during my day shifts. Suddenly I was inspired to think of my approach differently. Suddenly I found the passion to start pushing forward again. It was announced that a new course was opening, The Magic Box. It was crazy reasonable in terms of price, but I was still a bit hesitant. I had also heard about Painting Drama. Which should I start with?

I messaged Chris and asked him, doubting that I would hear back anytime soon. He was after all a very busy man. But the very next morning a message sat in my inbox - assuring me that there would be more Painting Drama offerings and recommending starting with Magic Box. So I was one of the first to sign up when it opened.

In the first month of lessons I learned more than 1 year of computer illustration classes at the college I attended. I went to Denver Comic Con and met Chris in person and I connected with other OA students in the area - even went on a field trip to the DAM. Two months later I was on a steep upwards climb, energized by the other passionate students around me, all over the world, encouraged by everyone. I got critique that I could actually use. It was like I sat up and turned on a lamp. A few months after that I auditioned for Painting Drama and leveled up my compositional skills. Almost two years later and I’ve exhibited at CTN, made huge progress on my passion project, and left the miserable gray cube for a position at Laika.

I know right?!? Sometimes I pinch myself because it feels so surreal.

I just want to thank my OA family for having my back, for taking me seriously, for lifting me up and keeping me amply supplied with crazy cute animal pictures. And thank you Chris for being an amazing mentor, teacher, and overall fantastic person. I am working on a MOVIE and I wouldn't be here without you guys!! 

Raul will be leaving Denver towards the end of this month to join me here in Portland. We are both very excited for this new chapter in our life - and to see what adventures await for us. :) 

OniSan Update!

 No!! No pictures! I'm camera shy!! 

 

Oooo excitement! Here is the armature stage for the Oni of OniSan. You'll no doubt notice a few differences between the armature for Julia: 1. More massing in of the body and 2. No head. 

This is why: 1. In accordance with the design, more of his body is going to be "visible", necessary to fully structure than Julia's body (Mainly hidden by clothes/highly structured under garments) Normally I'd advocate doing every part since it's educational and, to me at least, fun. But when you're on a budget, it's okay to creatively problem solve around material restrictions. He's also going to be a bit more mobile in terms of posing. Julia's pretty stationary - more of a show than a touch item. Within reason, I want people to be able to "play" with Oni when he's on display. More on that later. 2. I'm not sculpting a head - that mechanic is being handled by Raul, who promises to do his own write up for me to link to when I create Oni's master post down the road. (Should be especially great for those of you who like sculpting digitally and are curious about 3D printing) The middle picture is more or less a suggestion as to where we're going with that. Took me far longer than necessary to find the proper (KS) pipes for it - hint, go to a HOBBY STORE not a hardware or craft store. 

 

Anyways, he's a good inch or two taller than she is, making him close to a foot tall - but I won't have an accurate dimension until we get the head back from print and assembled. I had originally envisioned using foam to mass in the larger areas, it's a bit lighter and in my opinion holds shape a bit better than foil, but I didn't know how I would bake the necessary sculpy bits - if the foam would melt or not - so for now it's foil again. If all goes well I may go back and replace the aluminum with foam. I would like to try/demonstrate that technique since it's not too expensive or difficult from what I can tell. We'll see I guess. I'm a bit anxious and excited for those hands. Since I won't be spending a lot of time sculpting the face myself, I will have time to focus on the hands - awesome because having more time on them will let me try to match the quality of the digital head sculpt, but nervous also because hands are indeed a bit difficult. His especially are going to be quite interesting.

Going to be a busy next few months, can hardly believe that April is nearly half over. Will be checking in regularly, more often than not having some kind of update along the way. If you have any questions about materials or process I will be doing another master post at the end, but please leave me a comment and I can answer it more immediately! Also, if there's anything you're interested in seeing me break down/explain further let me know and I can do step-by-step shots too!! :)

Building Character: Julia Master Post

Most of my lovely regulars have been following the development of this particular mini-project in past posts, but a few such lovelies suggested a Master Post with the whole process, materials and more comprehensive insight into the struggles and victories I experienced while bringing Miss Julia to life. I think it's a brilliant idea. Not only do I hope that it inspires others in their endeavors, but it will help me when I start the next mini-project: IE Julia's counterpart, OniSan.

It's going to be a big post...so hold onto your butts.  


The Idea. The original plan was to make a fully functioning stop-motion puppet, something akin to Coraline or ParaNorman since creating characters for LAIKA is my dream job. To begin, I watched every stop-motion movie plus their special features I owned or could find legally online and scoured through the two books that I got for my birthday on stop-motion:

1. Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation: Edition 2 by Susannah Shaw (Recommended by LAIKA on Twitter and gifted by Mom)
   
2. The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation by Ken A. Priebe (Gifted by Raul – whoever wants to gift me part one will be loved forever)
   

Both wonderfully helpful for people making puppets and for people animating puppets and really for anyone interested in stop-motion. After sticky-noting my way through these and doing some more Google-based research on custom part costs. It became clear that as much as I wanted to learn/strengthen my molding/casting and tinkering abilities, I would not be able to make her a puppet this time around. It would break my budget and kill my savings for our impending relocation. As I wasn't planning on animating her either, I couldn't justify the cost, no matter how cool. So the goal was revised to be: make a detailed multimedia sculpture – similar to the Swamp Witch I made for Joan Kresek's Illustration Media class but better. I could use that for displays and for lighting reference and it'd still be cool. Huzzah for multitasking!

The Materials List. Most if not all of these materials were already on hand since Raul does a lot of sculpting and I also have a bit of a sewing/cross stitch hobby on the side. (Comes from being raised by a mob of quilters) Everything else came from local craft stores such as Michael's, JoAnn's, and Meiningers.

1. Armature
1. Paper to cover workspace and tape to hold it in place
   
   1. Armature and Jewelry wire      For building the skeleton of the armature
      
   2. Piers                                          For trimming and bending wires
      
   3. Epoxy Putty                              For solid, immobile areas
      
   4. Wood Base and screw/nut        For a stand
      
   5. Tin/Aluminum foil                   For building the bulk areas of the armature
   6.  Calipers                                     For measuring things
   
   
   
   
   

2. Sculpt and Paint 
1. Super Sculpy (The peach stuff)                   For sculpting itself
2. Turpenoid                                                    For smoothing out the clay
3. Various sculpting tools                                For shaping the clay and smoothing surface  
4. Acrylic Paints – opaque, translucent, glimmers            For painting the baked sculpture
5. Acrylic gloss medium                                                    For “wetting” eyes  
6. Brushes and water cup/paper towels and Palette paper                     For using the paint

3. Hair
   
   1. Embroidery floss – various colors               Primary hair material
      
   2. Glue Gun and glue sticks                             For securing various materials in place
      
   3. Jewelry wire                                                 For structuring curls of hair
   4. Scissors                                                        For snipping things
   5. Tweezers                                                      For precision placements 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Costume
   
   1. Two varieties of a basic costume satin.        For the dress
      
   2. Two varieties of satin ribbons                      For the ribbon-y bits
      
   3. Tulle                                           For poofing up the skirt without adding too much weight
      
   4. Lace                                           For details
      
   5. More Embroidery floss – same color as lace            For hand-made lace
      
   6. Thread and Needle and Sewing Machine                 For sewing and fastening things
      
   7. Bristol board paper                                                   For “stiffening” the corset
      
   8. Seed Beads                                                               For pearl details
      
   9. Jewelry Charm (From Britt)                                     For broach detail
   10. Pins                                                                           For holding stuff together
   11. *Had I a functioning Iron I would have used that too, for pressing seams more neatly. That's a Christmas Hint - Mom or Nana - Practical and Fun. ;) 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

5. Prop
   
   1. Scrapbook paper                        For the paper fan
      
   2. Thin, squared dowel                  For the support of the paper fan
      
   3. Regular glue                              For fastening the fan together
      

Of course I had a separate area reserved for working so I didn't have to waste time packing up each night. And I moved the lamp from the bedroom to the studio for more/better light. I mentioned before that I don't have quite enough light in the studio area, but what I do get from windows is cold north light as opposed to the lamp's predominantly warm light. This gave me a good sense of how my colors were engaging each other in various scenarios – since she won't always be sitting up in the studio. The unofficial materials list looks like this:

1. Large glass of Milk                        For drinking/hydration - very important
   
2. Snack foods                                    For snacking
   
3. Speakers                                         For listening to Raul's Spotify
   
4. Raul                                                For immediate consultation
   
5. Circle of Trust                                For ongoing feedback
   
6. Cell Phone                                      For checking time and occasionally         
                                                            communicating with various people
   
7. Internet                                           For ongoing research and other such things
   
   

The Process.

I started with piecing together the development page so I wouldn't be guessing along the way in terms of what I wanted her to actually look like or what materials would be most practical. A good deal of the researching started here. I looked at everything I could think of that would pertain to her character and the sculpt and I looked at things that might not necessarily be related, but I stumbled into and found interesting anyways. (This is a habit I thank my Mom for and also why I know so much random crap) I like to think I have a pretty good sense of what works and what doesn't when I have a clear picture of what I want the outcome to be. There's always some room for trial and error, but most of the time I end up with satisfactory results within the first two construction attempts. I find it best to spend a lot of time in this phase so there are fewer frustrations and broken hearts (limbs) later.

When I was FINALLY happy with her (This wasn't the first iteration by any stretch of the imagination) and the costume I made an orthographic image to scale of the final model. She stands 9.5” tall, so a little larger than the proportions LAIKA used for Coraline, who I believe stood about 7”. Drawing the blueprint allowed me to trim wires consistently to the right lengths (Calipers are super useful doing that) and build up the appropriate amount of cushion with the foil so as not to over-due the Sculpy and have problems baking.

I referenced a video tutorial that Jordu Schell made for the sculpting techniques as well as pestering Raul for his advice. (He sculpts a LOT of dinosaurs/creatures and was actually working on something-that-looked-like-a-hammerhead-newt-whose-scientific-name-I-can't-remember-and-I-feel-his-eyes-judging-me-even-now while I was doing this project) The hands were super hard. I did them once. Hated them and tore them off. Tried again. Hated them and tore them off. And then I rewired the finger armatures and tried again. Passable. Even though I wrapped them all separately in foil before baking...two still stuck together – eliminating my hopes for giving her gloves, like in the drawing. I followed the baking directions on the box of Sculpy – about 15 min at 275F – removing a shelf in the oven so her head wouldn't be too close to the coils. Thankfully nothing burned.

From here I could have opted to utilize the already peachy tone of the Sculpy, but I've never been fond of that color so I built up layers of skin – used pretty much every color under the sun...except maybe yellow. When I was ready for the smaller details of the face I proceeded cautiously, using the glimmer stuff sparingly on her lips and eyelids and saving the gloss medium on her eyes for the last touch. I added her little pearly necklace at this point with a seed bead and embroidery floss and a TINY drop of glue.

Next came her hair, which was super fun. Ideas of using my own hair were fizzled by the glue gun which liked to melt and burn things without my permission. In the end there was probably more glue on the table than on the project due to the gun dripping so much which was a bit disappointing. Didn't burn my fingers nearly as much though. I started with her lower, larger curls which are wires wrapped in embroidery floss (Got the idea from ParaNorman special features when they were talking about making Neil's hair). They were the first glued on. I had to reposition one and accidentally cracked her neck, but it's a hairline deal that paint covered up. If I hadn't just told you, you probably wouldn't have noticed. Then came the hiding of those wire ends with some very careful arrangements of “roots” and such. After that came the top of her head and the side curls, equally hidden amongst “roots” and finally her bangs which wove back into her bun. It was an exercise in problem solving for sure and I was really thrilled with how it turned out. In the Swamp Witch I had to braid clay for her hair and roll a million coils which I am admittedly not great at even though it came out okay. Embroidery floss is much easier, lighter and cheaper. It also comes in all sorts of fun colors and it's like string cheese – one strand breaks into 6 – who doesn't love that?

Next came the layering challenge of her costume – the real tricky part. I started playing around with the Bristol for her corset first before realizing the skirt should probably come before that if I was going to hide those seams effectively. So the first thing was the underskirt. This involved cutting out the pieces for the skirt (I didn't make a mini pattern for this like I did the mini corset a while ago, I guesstimated it based on the last skirt I made for myself) and sewing those seams. Cutting out the lighter green rectangles for her bottom hem, gluing those in place. Cutting the ribbons, gluing them together and to the skirt. Sewing the back seam. Prepping the waist cinch. And the grand finale of that layer – hand stitching the smaller lace. I used a basic backstitch so I didn't have to be as concerned with loosing loops than if I used a regular forward stitch. Once done I dropped it over her head and cinched it in place. (I bunched up the tulle and stuck that underneath to keep her skirts poof-y, probably could have used something else, but I had it on hand and it's not like she's going to be walking around much)

Next came the upper skirt, which I started the same way as the lower skirt. Once I had it cinched in place I glued the lace on the bottom edge (should have done that sooner) and used a hand needle to pull up the gathers and tack the ribbons in place. The bow was probably the one place where I could have spent a little more time on to get something closer to what I had in the drawing.

Next I wrapped the Bristol corset in more fabric (GLUUUUE) and wrapped her up snugly, which hid the aforementioned skirt seams. Next time I'll give it a bit more clearance in the armpit region so fitting the corset will be easier. I also cinched some of the lace for the sleeves. It wasn't until I was writing this that I realized that I forgot part of her sleeve. That's what I get for stashing the reference picture before I finished. Won't do that again. After the sleeves, I very carefully made the collar piece – opting not to do the hand lace there since that wasn't exactly fun the first time nor did I think it ended up subtracting much from the design. The jewelry bit came from Brittany's vast collection of jewelry coolness (THANK YOU) and I nipped the top part off with a pliers before gluing it in place. The seed bead there I had to sew on by hand.

The fan was fun and a lot more trial and error. I have a LOT of fans around my apartment, but I still had to basically guess how to cut the appropriate shape out of paper. 4^th try got it. Then I had to fold tiny folds back and forth. And then glue the dowels bits in place and all that to her hand. Probably better that the gloves didn't work out at this point.

Then all the photography! My little brother took those classes in high school, but I didn't have room for them and the animation/advertising...kinda wish I had taken at least one of them though. I set her up with a blank background and used every lamp I owned to try and get something workable. My little power shot camera wasn't the best – nothing like the SLRs I had access to at school – but it worked well enough for the time being. I'll see if I can get better pictures before this fall. In terms of final victories – she looks MUCH closer to the drawing than the Swamp Witch did to her drawing, so vast improvement with my 3D skills/my ability to translate 2D to 3D. Albeit a few tweaks I am very pleased. Reminds me a little of Red Nose Studio. Love his work.

The Conclusion. Just because the sculpt was done, didn't mean I could rest. I had been doing some doodles of Julia while building the sculpt and taking all the process pictures, so I spent another chunk of time cleaning those up, formatting pages, etc. so I could have those four pages ready to post with the finish. I still have one more to do – her “beauty shot” - one visual development illustration featuring her. I'm contemplating thumbnails, but I may wait to revisit her until after I'm further along with OniSan's mini project. Wouldn't be much of a portfolio to just have one character in it. lol

I think in total she took me about 15-20 hours, but that was spread out over several nights and about half a weekend due to the day job – patience was key on this, I tried really hard not to rush or get ahead of myself – which translated to me looking like I was just staring at her for hours I'm sure. Definitely think I leveled up though, so I guess it's time for a quick character sheet update. :)

If anybody thinks of something I forgot or wants to know something even more specific, please leave me a comment and I'll reply ASAP. I hope to take her "on tour" this fall *fingers crossed* so anyone heading to CTN can come check her out in person. 

Onwards to OniSan!! :D