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? 

The Youngest Miss Clarke

So here as promised is the design plan for that armature in the previous post. Already added the first block-in of clay, so it's starting to come together. I'll post an update before I'm ready to bake. Really glad I let Raul instruct me on armature building because if it weren't so darn sturdy I would probably have busted it up and died of frustration by now. Also saw Jordu Schell's Gnomen DVD on sculpting monsters...very informative AND super funny...would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Again, this is my design for the main character of Beauty and the Beast (aka Beauty, but that's not what I've named her). I'm sticking a little closer to the original fairy tale story-wise, set in a time/place that I am (haha, it's not cheating to draw what you know) very familiar with - though judging solely from the above may not be what you'd guess. It'll probably become more clear when I get around to posting the Beast half of this equation. For now, enjoy and ponder the awesomeness to come. ^^

Armature Building

Working on a new character and decided to do a bust sculpt. Stylistically aiming for something more along the lines of a Stop Mo. Animation Feature like Coraline or Paranorman or Corpse Bride since I've been watching those quite a bit recently. Here is the initial armature for her. ^^ More to come as things progress!!
She is the main character from my own retelling of Beauty and the Beast. (Still debating on a new title for it) I'll start posting the drawn concept work I've been doing for that soon too. ^^