Wooonderful Stop-Motion

WELCOME

2006-11-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Welcome on WOOONDERFUL STOP-MOTION.

When I did my end-of-studies stop-motion short film EMILY & LE HAMSTEROSAURUS-REX, I wanted to keep the mobility and versatility of facial expression I found in 2D hand drawn animation, without sacrifing anything in terms of design of the character.

Here are the techniques I came up with to reach that aim.
Nothing comes from nothing: I learned from books, making-of etc... and mainly from great people that were willing to share their knowledge:
So, thanks to Mickaël Fennetaux, Chris Entwistle, Arril Johnson and Mary Murphy.
and now, it's my turn to make my knowledge available.
I hope the content of this blog will be of some use for stop motion artists.

The blog is organised that way:
The "puppet making"section gather all the posts about the specific techniques used for the making of Albert and Emily
The "materials" section gather tips and technique about plaster, plastiline, and many other things
The « books » section gather reference to titles I used.

If you are willing to make any addition or precision about anything on this blog, or if you want me to do so, please send me an e-mail.
Regarding my English… as you may have gathered by now, English is not my first language, so please, be lenient with my grammar, vocabulary and orthography … all suggestions toward improvement are welcome as well.

I wish you a pleasant journey within my WOOONDERFUL STOP-MOTION.

Long live Stop-Motion!

Aurelie Blard-Quintard

click on the image to see Emily & le Hamsterosaurus-Rex

MOULDS

2006-10-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Just as every puppet is conceived for a certain type of action, a mould is very much made regarding what you're going to use it for: are you going to cast silicon, or press-mold some clay in it...?
As a rule: if you want the cast to be soft, use a hard mould (= plaster…), and if the cast is hard, use a soft mould.
This being said, the main thing with mould is patience: you might have to redo them quite a few time before you reach perfection (or at least something decent)

Once you have your platicine sculpture ready, dip the part you don’t want to cast right now (we’re doing a several part mould here) in clay (=loam: the one used to make pots)

Because the clay is water based, it won’t mix with you oil based plasticine: it will be easy to clean it with water when you want to cast the second part of the mould.
Be careful to be gentle when you press the clay next to the plasticine.
Remember to put some lumps of clay, or to dig small holes to reference the parts.

TIP: it is time consuming, but you will have a much better mould if you take time to build a “clay bath” that is as perpendicular to the plasticine sculpture as possible.

Before you pour the component of the first part of your mould, you have to build a “box” around the figure. It can either be made of clay (dangerous, because it’s likely to break and all your plaster/silicon or whatever material you’re using will end up on the floor: very messy and quite upseting) or of wood if you can cut it to the right size.

You can use other things: cardboard with Vaseline on it is a good idea if the item to be cast is not too big.

Use a glue gun to hold the pieces of cardboard or wood together.

You can use a disposable cup, an ice cream container… use your imagination.
The only requirement is that the box is higher than the item you’re casting.

Then pour either silicon or plaster, depending on what kind of cast you want, on the still exposed area.
If you’re using silicon, maybe you want to apply a very thin coat first (to avoid bubbles) and when this first coat is dry, pour more silicon. And maybe some plaster after that, to reinforce the mold (ideal if you want to press-mould some clay in your mould)

Once this part of the mould is dry, remove some of, or all the clay, and cast another part, until you have all the plasticine covered.

(you can use water to remove the last bit of clay that would remain on your sculpture. Use cold water only, so the plasticine doesn’t get soft)

If your using plaster, apply washing up liquid (and allow it to dry)on every part before you cast an adjacent one: it will ease the separation between the two plaster parts.
With Silicon, use Vaseline as an insulator between two parts

For certain kind of mould, you will need to make a little drainpipe by surrounding the plasticine to be cast by a tube of plasticine (at 1 cm of the main cast border). It will allow the excess of silicon or any other material to go away from the immediate surrounding of your cast: this way, the surrounding of the actual cast will be as clean as possible (sometimes some material still remain, and you have to carefully trim it)

In the area of moulding and casting, I have a reference book:
LE GUIDE DU MOULAGE, by Jean-Pierre Delpech and Marc-Andre FigueresEdition Eyrolles ISBN 2-212-02680-3
Unfortunately, it is written in French only.

EMILY’S HANDS

2006-10-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

You will need:
Plasticine, Aluminium wire, Milliput, heat shrink tube, Transparent silicon, acrylic paint (to make skin tone : red, blue and yellow), a lighter.

Step 1 : Sculpt two hands in plasticine.
Step 2 : Mould them (see the Moulds post)

Step 3 : Twist as many pieces of baked aluminium wire as the puppet has fingers (4 fingers=4 pieces of wire). Keep the end untwisted.

Step 4 : By referring to the mould, cut the wires. Put some very small balls of Milliput at the end (this will prevent the wire to go through the silicon.

Step 5 : put some heat shrink tubing around the wires. Heat shrink it with a lighter

Step 6 : Paint the Hand armature in a really nice flesh colour. Be careful: if it’s too white or too dark, it will be visible trough the silicon.

Step 7 : prepare the transparent silicon by adding some acrylic paint to it until it matches the SuperSculpey tint (put some of it on a piece on Sculpey to see if they blend correctly). Add some Thixotrope to a very small quantity of this silicon. Cover the armature of the hand with it. This will ensure that there will be silicon around the armature, even if the armature behave weirdly in the mould

Step8 : Once the silicon is dry on the armature, pour some unthickened tinted silicon on each part of the mould, put the armature into it, close the mould, and allow some time for it to dry.

Step 9 : once it’s dry, open the mould, remove the hand and trim the remaining silicon with very precise scissors

PLASTICINE

2006-10-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Plasticine (or plasticine) is an oil-based clay used in the industry of design to make high precision models.
(it’s different from the regular plasticine you can find in any art/kid shop)

It has the property to react to the temperature: heat it and it will melt until it becomes liquid and you can pour it in a mould. Cold it, let’s say, in a freezer and it will become quite hard (well, it’s still plasticine)
It comes in different states of softness. Be careful when making a choice about it:
If you choose it too soft, a mere touch of your fingers will leave prints, and could affect the shape you’re modelling.
And if it’s too hard, it will be difficult to reach the stage where it’s melted enough to be modelled.

Tip : to soften the plasticine and have a nice soft look to it, you can use a bit of odourless turpentine : apply with parsimony (I use the tip of a cotton bud), i twill melt the surface and even it.

You can then wipe it very smoothly with baby wipes. (baby wipes are also great to get rid of dust)

An other great product to use is baby powder: apply it with a soft brush and rub the plasticine with your finger: it will become smooth and shiny

If you want to sculpt a head or whatever around a core, be careful to make it solid : wood is a good idea. Don’t use paper or any other material that will endlessly « collapse » on itself. And avoid using aluminium foil for the core it reacts weirdly with plasticine.

If you can, put you’re platicine lump on a top of a stick, so you can work on it without having to hold it in your hands

Where can you find plasticine?

Mine was PASCAL ROSIER's , and I found it in ADAM (parisian art shop)

EMILY’S and ALBERT’S HEADS

2006-10-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

You will need:
Plasticine, Balsa wood, K&S, FIMO for the hair, White FIMO, SuperSculpey

Step1 : sculpt of the head in PLASTICINE.
Why using platicine : because you can rework it until you’re satisfied, and it allows great precision in the details.

Step 2 : plan your mould, accordingly to the final material the head will be made of. (see MOULDS post)

Step3 : Once the mould is done sculpt a core in balsa wood (I couldn’t find a piece big enough, so I glued some planks together with a special wood-glue) The core is smaller than the final head (obviously)

Step 4 : I fit a K&S tube in the core (not randomly ! the spine is going to fit into the K&S tube)
Step 5 : in the mold I press some FIMO for the hair. The balsa wood core has to fit into the hair

Sep 6 : I bake the FIMO in the oven (you can also bake it by using a hair dryer if it’s not too thick)
Step 7 : I place some white FIMO where the eyes are going to be. And some Dark red Fimo on the inside of the mouth. Then I bake it (yes you can re-bake the FIMO : just be careful that the oven is not too hot, otherwise some ugly bubbles are going to appear )

Step 8 : on some area of the face I put a small layer of SuperSculpey (smaller than the final model’s face)
Step 9 : Last step : press-mould some SuperSculpey on the rest of the face DO NOT BAKE IT. It will remain soft and will allow to re-sculpt the face according to the facial expression you want.
Step 10 : bake some small teeth in white FImo, with a piece of pin inside them : you can fit them inside the mouth when they appear (when the character laugh for exemple)

ARMATURES

2006-10-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

I'm talking about:

Twisted aluminium wire, heat shrink tube, electric dice (terminal blocks), Milliput©, K&S©, chemical metal (metal epoxy resin),
Polymorph©, doll armature

When doing an armature I take two things in consideration:
- What is the puppet going to do? (get this information from the animatic)
- What if the armature breaks while I’m shooting? Every part of the armature should be replaceable.

During the making of the film, I did two kind of armature.
Both of them were mainly made of twisted aluminium wire covered with heat shrink tubing (see the twisted aluminium wires post)

For the first armature the hips and the rib cage were made with a combination of electric dice hold together with Milliput©

This system allows the parts to be unscrewed and replaced in case of breakage.

On the second armature (the one I actually used in the film), the spine was made of a plastic articulated tube used in doll making (doll armature)

I attached the legs and arms to the spine with Polymorph©:

in case of breakage, I supposedly could melt the Polymorph© with a heat gun, replace the broken member, and put it back by heating the Polymorph© again (I was lucky nothing actually broke, because I’m not entirely sure I could have done that)
The upper arms and the hands fitted together with a K&S© referencing.

So was the head: I attached a piece of K&S© on the top of the spine with some Milliput©. This piece fit in another one I placed inside the head.

K&S© and aluminium wire were glued together with metal epoxy resin.

Neither Emily nor Albert was attached to the floor like most puppets are: the size of their head wouldn’t allow me to do it (I actually tried, and Emily’s feet broke). I therefore put a rig at the bottom of their spine:

a K&S© tube where I would fit the extremity of an articulated rig.
That way, the puppet's weight didn’t have to be supported by the feet.

SUPER SCULPEY

2006-10-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

Is a slightly translucid pink polymer clay. (it doesn't exist in other colors... I once saw somewhere on internet that you can tint it, but I never tried)
It’s very easy to work, allows great precision and refinement in details.
You can bake it in the oven.

I don't have much more to say: I just love SuperSculpey, that’s all :)

Go and check the Sculpey Website

HEAT SHRINKABLE TUBING

2006-10-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

Is a tube made of soft plastic that has the property to shrink when heated (with a lighter, or a heat gun)
It comes in different sizes and colours, and is very useful to reinforce twisted aluminium wires.
You can find it in electric stores.
Here is the link to the corresponding page on Maplins, in the UK.

K&S

2006-10-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

Is a system of square metal tubes

that comes in different sizes, each size fitting exactly in the one above (or below) it.

The interest in using it in an armature is that you can make it separable: the head from the spine, the hands from the arms… so if a part break you can replace it.

It can also allows you to rescult a head while shooting: you don’t have to remove the entire puppet from the set, just its head.
If you’re advanced in welding, and drilling, you can attach a nut on a piece of K&S, and drill a hole to place a screw: this way you can add pressure to the other K&S tube inside the first, to ensure it won’t move. But most of the time the mere fitting of two tubes is enough.
Where to find it: In a model shop.
They have a website: http://www.ksmetals.com

TWISTED ALUMINIUM WIRE

2006-10-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Aluminium wires exist in different diameters: 0,5 mm, 0,7 mm, 1mm…
When using it for the armatures, consider twisting some strings of wire together to improve their individual resistance to breakage.

You can twist your wires by hand, but by using a drill, the twisting will be more even.

Tutorial to twist wires with a drill:

step1: cut some pieces of wire of the same length;

step2: attach them together with a small piece of heat shrink wire.

step3: put this extremity in a drill,

and roll the other end of the wires around a pencil, so you can pull it tight. Then press the button on the drill.

step4: et voila! you now have a very even piece of twisted wire (more or less: sometimes you can't use the total lenght of the wires…)

I buy my aluminium wire in a shop in Paris called WEBER METAUX, where they sell it by the kilo (a kilo is an enormous roll).