Explorations

I have always had a strong appreciation and likingness to stop motion animation. I grew up watching Wallace and Gromit and now am intrigued by Laika Studio’s films. This year I desperately wanted to create a short stop motion video of my own, but unfortunately, the opportunity never lined up correctly with my projects. Even so, I knew that I wanted to touch on something at stop motion related at the very least before this year was up. So I decided I would make the head of a stop motion puppet out of silicone. I researched particularly closely how stop motion puppet making has developed over time. From the very first ever stop motion animation recorded to Laika’s innovative and impressive productions, stop motion has been heavily influenced and changed by time. In particular, I found the invention of the 3D printer was very influential where this way, animators could print thousands of the same face in slightly different positions to create consistent facial expressions. In my research I found it particularly interesting the way many puppets with silicone heads are made: they have a robot-like skull, often with screws that allow the animators to twist, tighten, or loosen different “muscles” in the face. These skeletons are then blanketed by the silicone head made carefully by the animation puppet artists.

Presentation

 

 

Final Product

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Infographic

This infographic shows the research I concluded in a visually pleasing way. I made this in Adobe Illustrator which is an application I am not particularly fond of but thought it necessary to practice more.

 

I thoroughly enjoy working with color and color coordination and shapes as I got to for this infographic. I find it to be really satisfying to see my bullet points of information turn into a piece of digital art.

 

 

Experimental Music

I wrote and recorded the background guitar piece in my documentary, and used the same recording for my experimental music project. I had never worked with plugging in the guitar to the computer and sitting down to record, so I had lots of fun making this song. It is very simple, but I wrote it specifically for the general “feel” of my documentary, so in that way, I think it is perfect.