Behind these castle walls

To establish the setting for the story for my short film, I have decided to shoot an exterior shot of the King's castle. This means that I need to create a miniature out doors scene and ultimately a miniature castle. I have been experimenting with cardboard and joint compound used for repairing drywall. These materials didn't really give me the look I was going for. Also trying to sculpt a brick pattern in wet or dry joint compound was more work than it was worth.

So now I am trying something different. 

  I created a silicone mold of a section of brick wall. Using this mold, I have been going to town making plaster casts of this brick texture.

This photo shows the cast and mold together.

Eventually I will combine these plates together making the walls of the castle. Other features of the castle will be molded and cast as well.

I am loco, for MOCO

Staying in during a long, unpleasant winter had its upsides too. I was able to put in some major research time on something that has interested me ever since I discovered the upgrades for DragonFrame 3. That something is Motion Control. 

Motion Control, aka MOCO, is a process that allows stop motion animators to create smooth camera movements which are nearly impossible by hand. These camera moves can be on a variety of different axises to create pans, slides, tilts, zooms, ect. DragonFrame has a moco feature built in, so all I had to do was acquire an arduino micro controller and various mechanical parts to build my rig.

The rig sitting on a desk, nearly 3 feet long.

The rig uses a stepper motor and timing belt for movement.

As you can see from the photos, my rig very simple at the moment, only one axis of movement. That maybe all I need for right now, but I have allowed some wiggle room for expanding its capabilities in the future. The Arduino Uno allows to control up to 4 motors, and other models can control even more. Oh and did I mention it actually works?

The Arduino and other electronics are contained in this case.

Here in an initial test of my rig though DragonFrame.

Even though I didn't use a puppet, each frame was shot one by one with my computer controlling the camera movement.You can see my shadow move about in the frame, but still I am very satisfied with the result!

The next test shots I will make will involve armatures or puppets. I will be sure to post those videos as well. 

Molds and Winter Progress.

Winters in Wisconsin are not easy to get through. And this year was no exception. The polar vortex gave us all a case of the Winter blues. Although I didn't completely give up on working on my project, it certainly did slow things down. Documenting my progress was hit even harder. So for the next several blog posts, I hope to give accounts of what I managed to do over the past five months along with any experimenting currently in process. 

During this time, I did manage to get a hold of some UltraCal 30, which has allowed me to mold the Jester maquette that I have shown in a previous post. UltraCal 30 is basically a concrete/plaster mix that is common in special effects makeup production and stop-mo animation. Before receiving my supply, I had experimented on making my own UltraCal-like mix. Yet, I have come to the conclusion that its worth it to just get the real deal.

To prevent damaging my camera, I did not take any pictures until everything had set. The pictures you see below are the end result of molding. Creating the mold itself takes a little bit of practice, but is simple enough once you get a hang of it. First off, you set the oil clay maquette in a bed of pottery clay or similar compound so only half of the model is exposed. I use WED clay which is a water based clay with added glycerin to prevent it from drying too quickly. Once the maquette is embedded, its sprayed down with some acrylic coating and its ready for molding.

Then, I brushed on a few coats of UltraCal slurry to the clay bed and model. Its important that the slurry is thin enough to get into all the details of the sculpture and to let air bubble escape. This will prevent any imperfections on future castings. After those few coats, I soaked some burlap strips in more UltraCal slurry and placed them on top of the clay bed/maquette. This step strengthens the mold once its cured. Last, I added less water to some more UltraCal creating a mixture that has a thick consistency similar to clay. This allowed me to work the UltraCal into its final shape.

After the first half of the mold is made, I basically did the same thing on the other side. The only exceptions here is that a mold release needs to used (I used petroleum jelly) and the clay bed is replaced by the first half of the mold. Check out the photos to see how it turned out.

Molding set up with tools

Cured mold

Mold halves after curing

 If you want more info on making UltraCal molds, there are plenty of resources and videos out there with a more information.

Funny Faces

After working on the armature and clay maquette for the jester character in my short, I decided to work on the head and replacement faces that I will use to give him expression. (I really wanted to mold the maquette, but I am struggling to find ultracal 30 locally. But I suppose that will be a topic of a new blog post.)

I am using silicone molds to cast the faces in resin. Its a simple process, just mix equal amounts of parts A and B to pour over a sculpt to make a rubber mold. I did this over a tile floor for easy clean up.

Various materials I used for molding/casting

For the main part of the head, I created a single part mold formed in a plastic cup. For the faces I used a two-part mold as the shape was more complex and I wanted better control of the seems. You can get a better idea looking at the pictures below.

Single Part Mold

Two-Part Mold After Resin Cast

Main Head Part With Eyes

Making the plastic parts was as simple as mixing parts A and B of the resin and pouring it into the molds. The two part mold was a bit more tricky. If you check out the pictures, you can see it had to have been made a particular way to ensure resin would fill the mold and prevent causing air pockets.

Inside of the Two-Part Mold

Face Casting

The mold I made isn't perfect, so I do have a lot of flashing and clean up for the plastic parts. I use a hobby knife to trim the flashing and thoroughly sand each face with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out any unwanted surface texture. As you can see, I left a portion around the mouth area to fill in later. To save material and cost, I am making different mouth shapes on each face as opposed to sculpting and molding each individual mouth shape. Why didn't I just go with replacement mouths you ask? I am trying to prevent any real noticeable seems on the face that I would have to remove in post. Also, I am not a fan of the "sausage" look to lips and mouths commonly seen on replacement mouths. Its not a horrible look, but I feel it doesn't really fit the style of the jester character.

Before and After Clean up

Several Faces with Different Expressions

I use polymer clay to model the mouths on face. When baked, the clay hardens and can be sanded down to blend more with plastic it is adhered to.  So hopefully when the faces are primed and painted, the differences in materials will be totally unnoticeable.

Face Close up

Face Close up II

Jester Maquette Progress

Over the past couple of months, I have been periodically adding clay to my jester armature in order to create a maquette for molding. Its a pretty simple process at this point, just heating oil based clay to make it softer and adding the clay onto the armature. Then when the clay is blocked up on the armature, its it then sculpted and refined into a satisfactory body shape.

Front View

Side View

 I am going to make actual clothing for the jester character to wear so I made it a point not to put much detail in the body. I did put in a little more detail with the feet, giving him medieval looking footwear.

Close Up on Feet

If you have noticed a break in the neck, is was left that way intentionally. I have been working on the head and will size up the neck and head together.

Neck and Wrists Remain Open

And for the hands, I am not sure I want to mold them separate or attach them to the body. I am waiting for the final decision on the hands once I finish the head and replacement faces -which just happens to be the topic of my next post!

Armature Hands

Its been a little while since I updated my progress, so here goes! I have made hands for my Jester armature. In the past, I have just used epoxy to attach wire hands the metal rod arms. I had little success with that as the epoxy or aluminum wire would break after animating for a while. So I decided incorporate an hybrid approach.

Jester armature hand

I created a metal joint to attach to the ball at the end of the armature's arm. Armature wire is then looped through a hole in that joint and wire fingers are made around the initial loop. I then epoxied the fingers at the base to hold them in place. I can already tell that the hands feel way more solid then just wire alone.

Hand to armature comparison

The hands do not seem too out of proportion with the rest of the figure, but fine tuning will be done as I start sculpting the maquette.

Jester Armature

Since I have posted last time on this project, I have been working the armature for the jester character. In the course of the film, this character will be picked up by larger characters and rustled around. So instead of the 12 inch characters I am used to making, I actually designed the jester to be more around somewhere between 5 to 6 inches in height. And to make him look a bit more cartoonish, (you can actually see this in the last post I made) I designed his head to be larger in proportion in to the body. This really made the new design quite tricky. However, I am very happy with how the armature looks and moves.

the armature with tape measure reference

front view large

Side view large

I had made ball and socket armatures for 5 or 6 years now. Not only is this armature the smallest one I have ever built, it also uses swivel joints which I had never incorporated in an armature before. Despite needing machining to super tight tolerances, they work fantastic. The other joints I have used before, but are less bulky with fewer individual parts. I can't wait to make it into an actual stop mo puppet!