Yr 1 Chloe Hebert Animation Journal

  I used the same turn around and design for the base of the 3D puppet as I did for the 2D puppet. I printed it out in a couple different sizes to see how big I wanted the final puppet to be. I plan on making the puppet 10 inches tall. Using the printout at the correct scale, I sketched the armature to use as reference. For the armature itself, I wanted to test out two main materials: 1.5 mm aluminum wire and 9.2 mm diameter plastic ball and socket armature. After cutting each material to roughly the right size, I started testing out each one's flexibility and stiffness. The aluminum wire was much softer, and easier to bend and cut. The plastic ball and socket armature is a fair bit stiffer. It is fairly easy to snap the joints after letting them rest in warm water for a bit. As seen in the videos, the plastic can't bend at sharp angles the way the wire can, but it does feel sturdier than the wire. Unless heated, the ball and sockets aren't going to pop out or snap. I decid...

After finalizing the character design, my next step was planning each puppet.  I started with the 2D paper puppet, because I was still waiting on some materials for the 3D stop motion puppet. I first planned the joints and pieces digitally. That way, I could get a rough idea of how the final range of motion would work before I start carving the black for the final puppet print. All the parts worked well digitally, so I printed out a test puppet on cheap paper to see how well it worked physically   For the most part I was happy with the first physical test. There were a could weeks that needed to be made, like moving the thigh in front of the shin (video below) and changing a couple of connection points, but I was satisfied with how the the whole puppet moved.  I could then move on to the next step: carving the lino block. Using the modified digital copy of all the separated, I transferred the lines onto the block using graphite and baking paper. Cutting the block in total...