Stop Motion Animation (Extra Work)

During workshop week I signed up for a stop motion workshop with nick. I decided to do this because as a graphic designer, animation is not my strong point and I wanted to give it a go. I also plan to do a stop motion piece for a studio brief and decided this would be a great help and experience.

When we arrived, nick had prepared a screen acting as an analogue computer screen, with pop up windows to contain a face. The aim was to create a face between the group that would move and animate in different ways all at the same time. We were told not t be too precise and work quickly and be a little bit mad. We split into groups and started to work on the different components, I worked with one other person on one of the eyes. We had to make the pieces out of black and white paper using collage so it had to be simple and effective. The first thing we did before creating collage was sketch out some ideas, looking at traditional eyes, cartoon eyes and even more decorative and technological eyes. Below are my sketches...

We decided that the eye that worked well was one that used thick black outlines; it was a typical eye shape however it was a little more abstract and depicted. I started to make the eye and the initial shape was really easy, however I had to think about how the eye was going to appear o screen and the movements it was going to make. I decided that I wanted the eye to blink and look around. I made the original eye come on bit-by-bit, separating the iris the pupil and outer eye and the eyelashes. Although the eyelashes were tedious I thought it would make the eye look more animated and better aesthetically.

I then made the eye blink by making a piece that would cover the eye completely and only eye lashes could be seen, I used white as a colour so that the lashes stood out, however when animating we decided to use a thick black closed eye to make it more apparent that a blinking action was happening.

Here are my creations for the animation....

I thought the style I had picked worked well against the dotted background because it made it look a little like pop art and I liked that about it, it was analogue with a black and white funky style of pop art. In the afternoon we started to animate. Initially we had to make the winos appear and this was a little tedious however once we started I could start to make my eye build u and blink, however I realized that this action in frames was very quick and I needed some more ideas. I made some quick teardrops when they were animating and made the eye cry. The one problem I had was that the tear duct was on the inside of the eye and that the eye had being placed on the wrong side, however we also evaluated that the face itself wasn’t exactly normal so this wasn’t such a problem.

As the animation went on it started to take a long time and I found that I didn’t have much patience for stop motion, I like the effect but to get that effect, things had to be moved only very slightly and this was hard for me. I added some stress lines towards the end. I enjoyed the experience however I don’t think I’m patient enough for stop motion.

I’m glad I chose the eye because i think it was a component that could have a lot done to it quite quickly when it was needed while filming. I’m happy with my input and I feel the workshop went really well, below are some photos of my participation and animation...