Monday 30 May 2011

contextual references - beads for eyes

I was curious to know exactly how professional animators make the eyes for there stop motion puppets, I looked carfully at a video from one of Aardmans stop-motion commercials and I could see a hole in Wallaces eye, It looked like they had used beads.


I looked online to see how Aardman did it to make sure it was beads that they used because I wanted to find out how professionals made the eyes for puppets. I found a video on youtube explaining how they made some of the characters from a walace and gromit film
In the how to make bunnys video for Aardmans "Wallace and gromit the curse of the were rabbit", I also saw that the modellers used beads for the eyes so that they could stick a pin in the hole and turn the eyes, I thought this was a good idea as in my last animation I found that using clay for the eyes would result in them becoming squashed and i had to keep making the eyes over and over again. I decided to experiment with using beads for the eyes of my characters so they would be easier for me to move and also to make my characters look more professional.


Here is a still image from that video showing the eyes made from white beads with the pupils painted black.

I decided to experiment with making the eyes the same way,although I made a few changes due to certain constraints with the material I was using. the thing is
because i was making my characters out of model magic which hardens after a while, I had to insert the beads into the face to make eye sockets then remove them and wait for the model magic to dry before inserting them and adding eyelids etc...
this way i could ensure that i was able to move the beads around, if i hadnt done this they would have been stuck to the model magic and unable to move.


as you can see in the above image the beads have been placed in the models head to make sockets for the eyes.


I then removed the beads and painted them white.


I inserted the beads back into the head after it was painted, carefully to avoid cracking of the model magic.
This way they could be moved around so that I could make the character look different ways.

looking at how professionals made eyes and taking from it what I needed, really helped.

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