Ss1- No Bull is being screened in Birmingham's Shorts on walls!

The latest edition in an occasional series of screenings/get-togethers run by Animation Forum West Midlands. It's a chance to see new films by animators from across the region, shorts on walls will also be showcasing my Red bull Animation which is great news on getting my name out there and seeing the audiences reactions, the screenings will be taken place at Custard Factory in Birmingham next friday as part of Flatpack Festival.


           More info                                                  Custard factory Friday at 18:30 

Ss1-Compilation of tests and my slides for friday

                                     

I've come to the end the term and its that time again for presentations, here are my slides below so check them out and above a little showreel from specialist study 1 to gather all my test and my animation together.

Evaluation for Specialist Study1

This specialist study 1 has been the most beneficial term of my whole time at university being an all out stop motion fan and practitioner for many years being able to specialise in what i want its been a long time coming and from this I've learned many things the first being if you want something you've got to work for it and ask the stupid questions,test everything and target what i do to get the best result.
               First was making an armature I clearly thought I had this one in the bag using all the right materials but when it came to animate the magnets weren't strong enough and the armature was top heavy and so switched to a professional armature to get the best results when animating.
               Having my original brief of 3 ten-second clips was changed once I decided to combine a competition brief and stick to physical comedy to specialise which gave me chance to come up with an original narrative which is simple and was clear to an audience of 4-7 years.
               My set was a practical solution which made sense to be able to get movement freely with the character having magnets not work for keeping the character standing,this gave opportunity to try using tie downs and in doing so I learn't more software like illustrator and cad to make all the holes I used a Cnc machine which put the holes through from the co-ordinates I gave from illustrator.
               When animating there were many things I learnt from putting everything in place for animating main things to remember were to make sure to tie everything down,make sure charger is kept full and is in a place easy to change battery without taking camera off the tripod.
              The animating really was where I learnt to keep thinking of where each scene is going in terms of movement of character and how to space each movement for the fps I was using,also to keeping looking at the storyboard and live action referencing.
              Keeping to a deadline was a goal which I was glad I achieved for both briefs having four weeks to prepare for Canimation and then animate with focus for about four days which gave me confidence and improved my animating skills.

The Pirates Poster!,Canimation and Facebook

The Pirates!

Look what came in the post from America.

 Finally got my poster today with delays with it coming over seas and other things,so happy with it being a cinema quality poster,next is deciding wether to take it to Peter Lord talk this saturday where he will be talking about The Pirates the much anticipated film from Aardman, really enjoyed Arthur Christmas last week with the lovely story backing some lovely story and keeping some britishness about it.

close up of the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant)

 Canimation

Glad to have taken time and learned new skills along the way to complete my Canimation entry 'No Bull' which was regarded highly by StopmotionPro along with put on their site to show 9 other entrys with qualities that were at their standard. 

My Canimation did not receive enough views to reach top ten in the competition but from which i got done in the short space of time shows that when given a deadline to work to i will get the job done,also helps for my next animation when animating and putting into my showreel so not all is lost.

GHanimation on Facebook

All my work will also now be put on Facebook at a group page called GHAnimation and here is the link to join-Gareth Hirst Animation Join Now

Canimation compliments from StopmotionPro

                                         
                                             StopmotionPro Favourite Canimation Entries

   Great news after receiving an email from Stopmotionpro giving me complements about my animation showing my use of weight well and admitting not used the software, they were still kind enough to put my animation up on their website with 9 other competitors. Thank-you for you support StopmotionPro its very much appreciated.

Ss1:Canimation here! Bristol Encounters update.

                   Canimation Entered,Encounters was just that in a networking perspective.

Well here it is folks! 'No Bull' my Canimation entry for the student stop motion area, there are still acting out scenes tests to come in a later post, there are two weeks to get as many views,comments and likes for my animation the top 10 get put infront of a pannel to decide the winner.
 recent activity incudes entering Canimation, i went down to Bristol to Encounters where i was inspired after meeting the likes of David Sproxton and Jon K got some golden advice from David and a picture with jon k. I will first show my animation then talk about Encounters.

                            
                                            'No Bull' from Gareth hirst on Vimeo.
                                    30 second stop motion animation by Gareth Hirst.

From now until my Specialist study deadline i will be working on animating my charcter only,what i mean is when specialising in stop motion you get the likes of set building,armature making,rigging and of course more but what i would like to do is strictly animate.
For the next couple of days il be looking at buster keaton and picking apart a small scene and reinact it with my animation abilitys with my Armature.

Encounters Festival

The boat from 'Gulp'

Myself with sculpter and Animation model maker at Aardman Amanda Darby
Gave some great advice and gave me chance to see a model from the new Aardman feature 'Pirate's' and from then my poster has been ordered with a buster keaton poster.

john k  :Cartoons and signing session

wheres gareth? photo by John k.

Great to see a lot of his work up on the big screen and talk to him, such a character and a real nice guy.

Really appreciated this and will have a better quality when John uploads to his blog.

Ss1-Preparation Before animating 'No Bull' Canimation

Stages before animation.
Animation up next week if can't wait link at bottom of post.

Using  a junior saw to get the neck as low as possible.

The neck was sawed about 2cm to be able to get the head closer to the body as at the time was out of proportion.

Getting the set ready

Greenscreen had to be sprayed just before animating because i didn't have a board big enough to fill the entire space behind the character.

Head and hands into place

waiting for araldite to dry aprox 2 hours.

Oh still waiting but once try totally worked a charm

Keeping everything tidy and all models used before kept safe with materals i won't need while animating away safely in a box.

Lighting and shadows

Boardered up window with thick black card.

When coming to animating i new i wouldn't have the best lighting so i didn't want to hinder anything else to the animation by having flash or every frame being a shade different.

then curtains done up to make extra sure

Holding everything in place 

This picture above shows theres a clamp holding a clamp down because of issues of having the set move and the clamp didn't want to stay in place so to give it that little extra hold.

Covering the light from the laptop so it doesn't refrect onto any of the shots.

Furthest clamp away holding an area which wasn't as steady.

More clear image of the clamp holding the clamp.

Scale

Getting the scale right i used greenscreen for the background because original was to small and got an extra large size can of redbull.

As you'll notice the tie'downs left loads of freedon when walking.

Background images from original set to use as greenscreen.

this was the one chosen for obvious reasons so clear ans no refrection.

Acting out tests.

Seeing how to get the redbull easy to animate.

In the end i found a shot glass round the house used that to hold small amounts of redbull then dab it on using a paint brush.

No Bull by Gareth hirst #canimation 

Ss1-Canimation final stages of post production.

Canimation is on!

sheduel/plan

Really packed weekend after speaking to my tutor i realised its worth me working til i've got something than just writing off the Canimation project,il be animating from where my armature and restantes of how far i've come but brush up after and evaluate the process.

The sheduel is crammed of animating from today right through until monday but hope to be putting the final render together on monday and put a sound clip to the animation from the choice they give you from the site.

Tonight im working on what has to be done to make animating possible then as soon as i'll be animating to the storyboard which i've set and altering slightly to accommodate my rigging limitations.

Final coat of skin colour and latex on top to hold the foam together round the eyes for when the eyes move.

Much more clear seeing the coats of latex trying.

Eyes a lot more clear and don't fall out which would have caused problems when animating.

Less obvious to notice the tape with the latex on top of the foam tape.

Hands with final coat and looking better with the same skin colour.

 Hands and head on armature as soon as ready then animation begins right through to 3am like set on the sheduel then 10am wake up and carry on.Only thing which is going to really hinder my performance is not being able to use the correct lighting because of limited stock in uni but hopefully without leaving desk lights on for to long they will do the job.

Ss1-Making sure the eyes don't pop out.

On the edge of ready to animate.

As you'll notice apart from the obvious of no eyes there isn't enough room for the eyes to move about and easily fall out so there must be a way around it without starting another puppet so I tried thickening out around the eyes did't really do much.
The next step was to have some tape blocking the eyes from falling out so get the right size tape latex it in place then paint on top but fit the eyes in first so the paint doesn't crack, thats another thing there isn't a lot of movement in the face so the paint does't have to strain on the movements(which causes cracks).
 

 Latexing several pieces of tape in place, the only problem was the tape being bright yellow the face colour didn't really match and so the whole head needed to be painted to also cover cracks from previous latex layers which weren't thick enough so peeled when they were touched.

As you'll notice trying out different pigments of skin tone but all turning out too pink.

Latex trying on the hand just after trying out a skin pigment and wanted to see how the colour changed with latex on top.

 Head painted and thickened around the eyes.

Base coat first,he's not tanned.

Plenty of space to get the eyes in and move the foam tape around the eyes.

First coat of second skin tone which will be a lighter version once paint try s.