Asylum 2012

So.... this summer I haven't done too much (as in I haven't done the things I told myself I was going to do this summer: finish my mermaid puppet, make lots of trial puppets, do shit loads of drawing, learn to drive, go to the dentist etc)

But I have done a week of volunteering with Kneehigh at their summer hang out- The Asylum

I have been helping out with the Kneehigh Ramblers, a small show set on a cart that will travel around village halls this winter. The show is made up of short stories written by Anna Maria Murphy and performed by Giles King, Anna Murphy, Simon Harvey and Sarah Wright. Wright performs puppets throughout the show- puppets made by her mother Lyndie Wright from Little Angel Theatre.
The puppets were so beautiful and Sarah performs them so well. I did have a little play with them- doing tightrope balancing acts. I also met another puppeteer from Little Angel called Rachel- she had just been performing the giant puppets at the Olympics opening ceremony. It was great to be able to cant with her about how she got into the industry.

As well as helping the Ramblers (i was painting sets for them and helping out with directing) i also painted up the front of house and behind the musician stage. I painted the doorways like toy theatres with woodland creatures playing musical instruments. I have to wait for the photos though as i managed to break my camera this summer (on a roll)

Stills from tests

Still not been able to upload my tests but here are the other stills...

And I also took some better photos of the maquette:

Fish Skeleton Creature and Puppet test (still)

I made a little head for  my fish skeleton. Ideally i would have managed to cat it and put a wire throughout the middle so it could be animated. But that will have to come later.

Heres some pics...

This is a still from my puppet test. I haven;t been able to upload the videos as they
won't play on my Mac so i'll have to do it at uni.
I really enjoyed the testing. At first I couldn't get the hang of the weightless movement
of being under water but then i achieved a good piece of footage, it think...

ANimation tests

Today I made some animation tests of the mermaid prototype.
I can't get the movement right to make her appear under water. I looked at footage of dolphins but I can't achieve the graceful, weightless motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THYcRm0sIfo


I found the way these creatures move inspiring. They're so bizarre! I think I need to try and take note from how these move as well as just fish. Water creatures can float mid- water, barely moving at all and then dart about and I need to capture that in my tests.

The puppet is working well but she's so light and I'm not used to animating with something as light as this. Plus she's on a rig which means she wobbles when i touch her- The rig is just a length of wire.
Tomorrow I'm going to get in to uni early and do i short but well thought about test- I should hopefully have the head and boobs done tonight. Then I need to photograph the puppet well, and ask the maquette. And do my essay, project file, dvd and presentation. No rest for the wicked, eh?

Prototype Puppet

For the last couple of days I've been making a prototype stop motion puppet from the plasticine maquette I've made.
I'm learning how to carve in foam and make basic armatures. The ones I made earlier weren't made from the right wire.
I like carving in foam- if i do cut too much away I can just glue more on. I haven't got as far as putting detail on.
I like the look of the tail because you can se the construction and it doesn't look 'normal'.

I made the tail by attaching polymorph discs to the twisted wire. I then stretched tights over the 'skeleton'.

As i haven't done a scale drawing I have to compare
the armature to the model.

At first i was going to make the tail discs like this because they
resembled the fish spine discs more but from the front view they looked
too big a blocky and I want something more delicate.

Pelvis/Tail base and first disc.

Four holes holds them in place better.

The foam was glued onto the armature

Carving with nail scissors to get the basic form.

I wanted to cover the wire with something to make it look more
like spine. The string didn't look that good,
it was to bulky and meant the wire couldn't
be bent as well.

I used physiotherapy bandage soaked in latex and then
added a bit of string to create a spiny look.
But then i removed the string as the bandage on
its own looked better and moved better.

All wire covered.

Testing the tights over the tail armature.

I found some scraps of really nice, soft, thin foam
which i soaked in latex and wrapped around the 'bones'
on the arms

Attaching K and S for the head.

                                      

I'm going to do some tests of the tail being animated tomorrow to see if its worth pursuing. I think for my assessment if i can get a good working prototype and some video tests that will be good- for my benefit I have definitely learnt something and its something i can continue with over the sumer and in 3rd year.

I would like to have a finished puppet but I don't think I will have time. I don't want to rush anything and stress my self out.

I really wish I'd been in a better head space earlier on, I could have done this a week or two ago and had the time to make a final puppet.

But I do have other little experiments that I like and also want to develop further. It just takes me so long to get into self motivated projects. Next year I can't work on my own.

Fish skeleton

FINALLY!

I've finally managed to get a fish skeleton. It took ages and really pissed my house mates off but I've done it! I had to sacrifice the head though as I just couldn't remove all the flesh and keep it intact. I ended up putting the fish with most of the flesh picked off in the bottom of the oven for a few hours on a low heat to dry it out. I had to glue some of it back together and next I'm going to varnish it.

Once I've done that I'm gong to make a cast, but so it has a air through the middle of the spine. I'll probably try a few different materials for the cast but I'd like something that would allow it to move.
I plan to make a series of them with different faces- weird mutant fish people.

I think if I can get this done by next Wednesday, I will have 3 variations on a theme and that should, hopefully, be a nice collection of work.

I could be wrong. I'm bricking it about next week....

Studying the jaw movement. 

Fish skin is pretty tough

I started noticing all these little
spiney details. 

Texture and colours- useful for my puppets

At work we've had a few lobsters so I took some photos of their shell texture as I think it would be good for the puppet skin. It's also just really beautiful.