Back to Once Upon and Iceburg.

Back to Once Upon an Iceberg

And I am in my final week (with potential for recall in EMERGENCY! =P)

For the last few weeks I've updated you on how I've been helping to create this wonderfully cute yet strange animation. And after this post there may only be one more on my 'icy' blog post! Yes that means I will no longer be able to keep you updated an right in on behind the scenes.  But I have seen a few clips and test shots and it is looking amazing and I cant wait until next years release! 

So What Have I been Up to...

...last week I was painting these little guys along with making a few props myself for a boat. If you follow me on Instagram you will already have seen a mock scene of the boat. Have a looky! here is a link  If you have the Instagram, why not follow to get more in depth updates on what I'm up to and where I'm at! 

My work space painting TINY lite props.

And bellow is what I painted! I had a lot of fun with these, especially the made up language. Luckily I had developed this writing from a young age...aka I used to use this type of writing in a lot of my drawings growing up. ✍(◔◡◔)

And here is a collage of pictures showing my making process of a bucket. Perfect for fish! Or so I'm told. And I think there going to be dead fish too.... oh look there they are below.

I also helped to paint these little guys... aint' they cute..  These were made by Becky, from wire, masking tape and sculpy. Arnt' they amaze! 

And last but not least, to get an idea of the final piece, some of the assortments mixed with the boat. The boat its self was made by the wonderful Becky. It's made of a body of foam, fashioned with planks bolsa wood around the edges, and a bolsa cabin. All etched with a wood grain and painted with rosco. I helped construct the roof of the hut and I finished the paint job on this puppy. 

I think it looks soo cute! the design was inspired by a mixture of Inuit and western fishing boats. 

I am going to add a few more shots of where we left one of the stages (for now) and some screen shots. Photographs are by myself and the crew who are all very talented. To see morw of the project and more amazing work! Why not check out the links below and have a look at all the skill. 

Enjoy! 

 Becky! 

Inside of Tuts' place. (unfurnished)

Screengrab of animation

OH TUTS! Why you so cute! You heartless little one you. 

Before I leave I am going to leave you with a few links to the producers and animators websites if you would like to follow this project more! I defiantly recommend it as they have more amazing information and pictures for your drooling chops. 

onceuponaniceberg.tumblr.com

facebook.com/onceuponaniceberg/timeline

lizzieosborne.com/animationshortonceuponaniceberg

How did you like the props I helped make? Think of any other cute tiny things I can make that could help. or have you ever made any tiny props? I'd love to hear from you and what you made your tiny props for.

Until next time,

~Chow4noW~

Animating again!! Well, sort of...

So iv'e been busy recently; doing what? Oh nothing much, just reforming my life. As you do.

I'm sure we've all been there at one point or another. Finding the creativity and inspiration to implement what we actually want to do though is another matter. In my case it's a matter of organisation, presentation and implementation.

Knowing is the first step I think, and I have decided that I am going to extend this blog to an inspirational blog as well as creative sketchbook and behind the scenes blog.

That said I'm not quite there yet. Soon but not yet, I'm in the process of planing. The organisation part of things. While I'm doing this I am also working on a few projects with the hope of more to come. I have completely jumped into the pool of freelance!

So this is one of the projects I'm working on and I think its the one i'm most excited about. I'm back to Design and Prop making! Its been a while since I've had the ambition to get back into animation but with the help of an old friend and just a swell story line and aesthetics I don't think I could resist. 

So my current tasks are paint work, texturing and modeling; all for testing so far, but when they are approved by the director we will go ahead and make the final models. And I can proudly say this is my first time Polly sculpting, so I've had a lot of fun there. (Polly is what you can see under the desk there to the right, if your not sure its kind of like foam you get in parcels, just heavy duty.) 

Here are some resin tests with and without paint. Here we are testing  which texture would be better for ice. 

And more testing of materials here seeing which would be best for the icebergs inside columns. This is built up with more polly and plaster caster. Simple! 

I'm defiantly enjoying this project at the moment, so I'll be keeping you up to date! 

Until next time,

~Chow4noW~

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Comic at the British Museum.

Entrance to the show.

So I saw an advert for 'Comics Unmasked' at The British Museum and I thought to myself, how can I resist going to see such an exhibition, especially when it is so close. So last week I booked my ticket and today I set off. 

Overall I think it was a pretty cool exhibit! Very nice one so thank you British Museum.  ᕙ(`▽´)ᕗ


A few of the pieces caught my eye, and I made a few sketches in the small amount of time that I had.
( Not the exhibits time limit, my own. (︺︹︺) )

A few of these sketches are below.

Thoth Tarot. Represents completion and
achievement of goals.

 My first sketch, or more like scribbles that might not even be eligible to you, is a tarot card painting; around A3 size with border frame.  It was 'The Universe Tarot Card'. And only 4 of the whole deck have been seen since they were painted. I only wish my sketch did the piece justice.   They were painted in the early 20th Century by a gentleman named Aleister Crowley. ( was the only one whose brain jumped to Crowley in Supernatural? hmnnn? )  

Sneaky picture of The Universe Taro card
in the comic Batman: Arkham Asylum. 

                                   This Taro can also be seen in Batman's Arkham Asylum comic. Unfortunately, despite the amazing artwork by Dave McKean, I didn't buy this comic, though I thought about it, but i did manage to sneak a sneaky picture of the page it was on.



 Here are a few more sketches that I did throughout the tour:

Another piece that caught my eye especially was the publication of the Victorian 'Penny Dreadful'. I knew nothing about this except that there has been a recent release of a series by this title, so to see this was like an explosion in my mind. Very awesome indeed.

If you dont know anything about either, let me help you out with that. Heres a link to the Penny Dreadful site,   and a beautiful image of the cast is below.









Not only all of this, but I also found out later today that a local old pub, 'The Spaniards Inn' was also names after a highway robber that used to robb people that were comming out of London. Guess his name? Dick Turpin, Also the name of the main anti hero in Penny Dreadfull! So eventualy and hopefully sometime soon I will take a trip up there and get some sketches of the Inn and of 'Jack Straws Castle'.

AAANNND I got a huge haul! I couldn't resist. Granted, some bits were found but who can resist pens and comics? Not I.So bellow you will se the comic of Batman that I bought, going to have fun reading that one tonight. (˘‿˘ʃƪ) And I had to get a postcard, a little tradition with Musiums for me that I think everybody should invest in. A pick for my guitar, a leaf I found in one of the decorative display books.  And other bits and pieces about the exhibit. 

And I bought a couple of pens. ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ) I love stationary. (dont judge)

                                         The white one is basically a blender for non permanent ink and pencils and the other is a black liner with two sided nibs.                                                                                                                                             Verry FUN pens, so as soon as I got home I tested them out on another sketch I did of a Joker Mask, By David McKean. See below! 

Thanks for reading about my day, 

Chana

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I Made a Tabloo....

...Why? I Have No Idea. 

It started with a little house for my main logo character, witchpencil, made by the wonderful Aimee Williams. Or better known to her students Miss Williams. I believe I've mentioned her before on this blog, we do do (hehehe, i said doodoo) quite a bit of crafting together, is always a lot of fun.

So as i said, no idea why this was made, but when do we need an excuse to make something these days, huh? So below are some pics of the process of making the tablo. Probably not the proper masterful technique, but none the less, it got the job done.

 

Making houses! 

Because a tablo needs a few houses. 

And Vola! i popped it into the garden to give a more ...realistic background.? Yes. Obviously. And this is what it looks like! 

And here i just messed around with the image in photoshop, but i was in a bit of a rush if i remember correctly, so i only spent maybe 10 mins on editing it. If you know photoshop, you can probably see. 

And Vola!

This is one way to waste your time, make a tablo! Because why not.

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More puppets!

LAAAA!!!!!

In addition to the prep piece I made below from water based clay, (this stuf cracks up by the by if you dont treat it or make your model secure, BEWARE! =3)

I also made my puppets from URO clay, which can be used to create cute things such as Dolls house appliances e.t.c, or like how I did, for puppets!




So where did I begin? Exactly where  I should, with the armature!
 I measured my wire against my planed drawing, spliced the wires and then added all of my nuts and bolts and such. I think if you consider yourself fairly adept, you should find your own way of doing your puppets. And learn from your successes and fails , its a large part of learning and improving your skills.

I found CESAR DACOL JR particularly useful when doing my research on armatures. 

After gluing, twisting, mulching and swearing,  I began to mix then model my clay beginning with the head and implanting the eyes.  

I continued to manipulate my clay to the way I wanted it for my characters.

Here are a couple of stages within my modelling so you can see my process, if it helps.

 And finally they were finished. They move and everything. Here they are ready for filming on my un-made set.

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Puppet Time!

Here we go, some pictures of the puppets that I've been making and the preparation that I had to do for these amazing creations.

I started by getting used to the tools, I have modeld before, but just the basics like the head that you might have seen below.

So I started with what I know, head first. Exhibit A.




I then checked out some tutorials and such, then I made my wire frame, covered it with tin foil to fill it out, then i started to cover it with clay. As this was just a prep to go off of for when I did make my puppets.

       Tadaaa!

After much labour and love, this is the model that was produced!

Sculpture!

Updaate! Rasta head based on the main character Chargen, in one of my latest music videos.  I began the production of this video last week and have just started on creating visuals. So far I have researched and created a general direction for the project to go in and The Love People seem very happy. If you'd like to check out the production so far, hit the link baby!

www.takemetojamaica.tumblr.com

Updated-2014- Just found these, progress pictures of creating this sculpture.

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