Yes, yet again, bugger-all concrete animation activity - but McTodd Animates! has spawned a sister blog to cater for the increasing amount of caricature sculpting I'm doing now.
Check out McTodd Caricatures!
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Friday, 27 February 2009
Big Pat: "Here's lookin' at you, kid..."
A quickie post before I chip off home... Last night I remodelled Sir Pat's head, incorporating a pair of new eyes (and I also re-sculpted his hair, adding cotton threads to a clay base). The photo isn't great, as I simply plonked him on the back of the sofa against the yellow wall behind, but it does illustrate the vastly improved eyes (see his earlier incarnation)...
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Why eye (again...)!
At last, I think I have cracked making reasonably convincing eyes.
This is how...
Download a load of photos of human irises of various colours. Resize them to the desired dimensions and print them off a decent colour printer (ta muchly to my old mucker Joe Scaramanga). Fortunately, the size iris I needed coincided with a single-hole punch I have, thus ensuring perfect circularity - trying to cut them out using scissors proved a dead loss...
Take a 16mm spherical white plastic bead and flatten one face such that the diameter of the flat matches the diameter of the paper iris. Stick the iris to the flat face (I used doublesided tape, which I stuck to the back of the iris before punching it out).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Since originally writing this post, I have found that it is not necessary to flatten any part of the spherical bead - the paper iris can just be stuck to the curved surface, it is small and thin enough to conform to the compound curvature without distortion or wrinkling.
Now, take another bead of the same size and use it to vacuum form a clear dome using thin transparent plastic sheet. If you don't have a vacuum former (I happen to have made one twenty-odd years ago for some other projects) you could press-form the domes: take a piece of scrap wood, drill a hole a few millimetres larger than the bead, tape/pin your clear plastic over the hole, stick it under the grill until it goes soft and then press the bead into it.
Glue the dome over the incomplete eye to finish it off.
Et voila!
This is how...
Download a load of photos of human irises of various colours. Resize them to the desired dimensions and print them off a decent colour printer (ta muchly to my old mucker Joe Scaramanga). Fortunately, the size iris I needed coincided with a single-hole punch I have, thus ensuring perfect circularity - trying to cut them out using scissors proved a dead loss...
Take a 16mm spherical white plastic bead and flatten one face such that the diameter of the flat matches the diameter of the paper iris. Stick the iris to the flat face (I used doublesided tape, which I stuck to the back of the iris before punching it out).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Since originally writing this post, I have found that it is not necessary to flatten any part of the spherical bead - the paper iris can just be stuck to the curved surface, it is small and thin enough to conform to the compound curvature without distortion or wrinkling.
Now, take another bead of the same size and use it to vacuum form a clear dome using thin transparent plastic sheet. If you don't have a vacuum former (I happen to have made one twenty-odd years ago for some other projects) you could press-form the domes: take a piece of scrap wood, drill a hole a few millimetres larger than the bead, tape/pin your clear plastic over the hole, stick it under the grill until it goes soft and then press the bead into it.
Glue the dome over the incomplete eye to finish it off.
Et voila!
Monday, 23 February 2009
Pathetic, utterly pathetic...
Bugger-all progress to report, I'm afraid. I have been pathetically inactive, due to a great extent to an uncharacteristically busy bout of post-food-poisoning socialising (i.e. getting pissed a lot).
However, I am working on two different techniques for making convincing eyeballs (not being at all satisfied with the efforts documented below), which will be the key to a reasonable model Martian, which I hope to bring to fruition this very week - so, as ever, watch this space!
However, I am working on two different techniques for making convincing eyeballs (not being at all satisfied with the efforts documented below), which will be the key to a reasonable model Martian, which I hope to bring to fruition this very week - so, as ever, watch this space!
Monday, 9 February 2009
Sick as a parrot...
Well, sick as a parrot that ate tainted oysters.
Yes, I have been laid low for a few days by a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning brought on by a brace of oysters.
I should have known better than to eat something that looks like snot...
But now I'm almost back at full strength, I shall resume my Martian adventures! So watch this space...
Yes, I have been laid low for a few days by a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning brought on by a brace of oysters.
I should have known better than to eat something that looks like snot...
But now I'm almost back at full strength, I shall resume my Martian adventures! So watch this space...
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Who Ate The Pie At Night...
As a break from the Martian, I ended up spending the last couple of evenings sculpting a clay caricature of Sir Patrick Moore, telly's mad octogenarian stargazer, for the weekly Challenge on the inestimable b3ta website.
It was nice to have a task with a clear (and near!) deadline, forcing me to get off my arse and do something! And the feedback on b3ta has been nice too...
It was nice to have a task with a clear (and near!) deadline, forcing me to get off my arse and do something! And the feedback on b3ta has been nice too...
Monday, 12 January 2009
Blast from the past
While visiting my parents recently, I was rooting around in a cupboard full of old stuff of mine and found the original model building I blew up back in the 1980s (see this thread: http://mctoddanimates.blogspot.com/2008/11/first-steps.html).
Retrieving it and carting it back home, I thought I'd chuck some photos of it on here...
See you, see me
Well, here I am, back from my Christmas break and, as usual, I didn't get as much accomplished as I would have liked.
Nevertheless, I made a new set of tentacles and I've been trying to make eyes for the Martian, which you can see in this post.
They're just over 20mm in diameter, and made from SuperSculpey clay. I actually used the clear plastic hemispheres you can see them sitting in to mould the clay. In order for the resulting hemispheres to be slightly smaller than the plastic shapes, which will be used as eye sockets, I 'jiggled' the clay after pressing it in to create a small gap all around, before cutting it off and baking it hard.
I'm not entirely satisfied with the paint job (done using modelmakers' acrylics) and will have another crack at the irises and pupils. Note the pinholes in the pupils, made so I can animate the eyes moving in their sockets.
Nevertheless, I made a new set of tentacles and I've been trying to make eyes for the Martian, which you can see in this post.
They're just over 20mm in diameter, and made from SuperSculpey clay. I actually used the clear plastic hemispheres you can see them sitting in to mould the clay. In order for the resulting hemispheres to be slightly smaller than the plastic shapes, which will be used as eye sockets, I 'jiggled' the clay after pressing it in to create a small gap all around, before cutting it off and baking it hard.
I'm not entirely satisfied with the paint job (done using modelmakers' acrylics) and will have another crack at the irises and pupils. Note the pinholes in the pupils, made so I can animate the eyes moving in their sockets.
Friday, 19 December 2008
'Tis the season to be jolly...
Yes, it's that time of the year again, and even McTodd isn't totally immune from its effects, so here's my own e-card to set you in the mood...
Meanwhile, due to the fact that after today I'm away from work for three whole weeks, and I don't have the interweb at home, this'll be yer lot until around mid-January!
Hopefully, by then I'll have loads of exciting things to report...
Meanwhile, due to the fact that after today I'm away from work for three whole weeks, and I don't have the interweb at home, this'll be yer lot until around mid-January!
Hopefully, by then I'll have loads of exciting things to report...
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Every breath you take
Finally, something tangible to show!
I have completed the main section of the breathing mechanism for the Martian. At its heart is a threaded bolt which causes a wing-nut to move back and forth when the bolt is rotated. This wing-nut then pushes out two hinged arms on either side. An elastic band connecting the arms then pulls them back in when the direction of the wing-nut is reversed (by rotating the bolt the other way). In practise, I suspect the elastic sides of the animation puppet would push the arms back in without the elastic band, but it's there for the video demonstrations below.
The mechanism is incomplete, insofar as it would have to be attached to a pair of 'breast-plates' which will conform to the shape of the Martian's body. The basic mechanism as shown could also be used in puppets of quadruped creatures, such as certain herbivorous dinosaurs.
To give an idea of size, the threaded bolt is around three-inches (75mm) in length, and it was animated with one complete turn of the bolt per frame, at 25fps.
The basic mechanism is shown, as viewed from above, in the schematic diagram:
And this video shows the mechanism's action:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I-q3omo5WAQ
While this one reveals the inner part of the mechanism, with the arms hinged out of the way, just about showing the piece of square plastic epoxied to the wing-nut which prevents it from turning and losing contact with the hinged arms:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EztfkaMzlds
I have completed the main section of the breathing mechanism for the Martian. At its heart is a threaded bolt which causes a wing-nut to move back and forth when the bolt is rotated. This wing-nut then pushes out two hinged arms on either side. An elastic band connecting the arms then pulls them back in when the direction of the wing-nut is reversed (by rotating the bolt the other way). In practise, I suspect the elastic sides of the animation puppet would push the arms back in without the elastic band, but it's there for the video demonstrations below.
The mechanism is incomplete, insofar as it would have to be attached to a pair of 'breast-plates' which will conform to the shape of the Martian's body. The basic mechanism as shown could also be used in puppets of quadruped creatures, such as certain herbivorous dinosaurs.
To give an idea of size, the threaded bolt is around three-inches (75mm) in length, and it was animated with one complete turn of the bolt per frame, at 25fps.
The basic mechanism is shown, as viewed from above, in the schematic diagram:
And this video shows the mechanism's action:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I-q3omo5WAQ
While this one reveals the inner part of the mechanism, with the arms hinged out of the way, just about showing the piece of square plastic epoxied to the wing-nut which prevents it from turning and losing contact with the hinged arms:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EztfkaMzlds
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Sniffle, snuffle, cough, hack...
Well, not much progress to report, other than to say that Christmas is truly on the way as I have been suffering from a horrible cold and bad chest, experiencing various free drinky events at work, and building almost all of a friend's flat-pack furniture for his new bloody flat.
Coming back to proper fillum preparation, however, I am building the Martian's breathing mechanism, and I've made his six tentacles but have yet to attach them and cover them with their final textured skin.
Coming back to proper fillum preparation, however, I am building the Martian's breathing mechanism, and I've made his six tentacles but have yet to attach them and cover them with their final textured skin.
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Not a Little Green Man...
Progress is slow at the moment, but apart from designing a breathing mechanism to go inside the Martian puppet, I have been experimenting with colouring the skin.
There are many ways to paint latex puppets, the most popular of which is to use PAX (a mixture of artists' acrylic paints, such as Liquitex, and a prosthetic adhesive called ProsAide, of which the non-sticky version, NoTack, is said to be the best).
However, I decided to opt for colouring the latex itself with the base colour, and will use PAX later to dull down the uniform colouring and add character. I added some latex colourant (available from the model supplies shop 4D in Aldgate, London) to a batch of liquid latex and cast new skins.
The rest of the liquid latex can be kept in an air-tight container and will be used to colour the tentacles and make new skin sections to patch the main puppet skins when the model is finally put together.
Meanwhile, this is what the main skins look like...
There are many ways to paint latex puppets, the most popular of which is to use PAX (a mixture of artists' acrylic paints, such as Liquitex, and a prosthetic adhesive called ProsAide, of which the non-sticky version, NoTack, is said to be the best).
However, I decided to opt for colouring the latex itself with the base colour, and will use PAX later to dull down the uniform colouring and add character. I added some latex colourant (available from the model supplies shop 4D in Aldgate, London) to a batch of liquid latex and cast new skins.
The rest of the liquid latex can be kept in an air-tight container and will be used to colour the tentacles and make new skin sections to patch the main puppet skins when the model is finally put together.
Meanwhile, this is what the main skins look like...
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