Setting up the snow scene

Here’s a couple of stills of the little Orphan begging in the doorway…and a timelapse of the initial set-up. Still to be added to this scene are the passers-by in the foreground, one pushing the cart, and two little rats who come sniffing about.

Puppet progress

Here are some progress pics of the puppets, including three heads of Tregeagle himself in varying states of decay, the Vicar and Churchwarden, the Hermit (3 pics), the New Magistrate, some peasants and the stained glass window of St Kevan complete with pasty!    

Two part Plaster Moulds

Here is a sculpted puppet (in Chavant hard clay, with the armature inside) ready for casting the first half of a two-part plaster mould. It is in a bed of water clay, with some round indents to help the mould halves register accurately together. I have used some heavy gauge plastic (actually builder’s damp-proof course) to create the walls, backed … Read More

Scarier Hounds!

I was not happy with the original version of the Hounds of Hell. It was much too hairy and cuddly-looking, so we nicknamed it Fluffy and I sculpted another head. The original is now the Puppy of Hell, and the parents were created from a single mould, with one of them having a narrower armature and a slightly different shape … Read More

Director’s Q&A

Q: What motivated you to do this project? A: A number of things came together. I had tried stopmotion many years ago and given up because the technology available to me was simply not up to it. I remember costing out a film using a 16mm Bolex, and it came to a ridiculous sum. So I put it to one … Read More

Foam helmets

A couple of helmets made using 2mm EVA foam, glued with contact adhesive and painted with acrylics. The shapes were first cut out in paper, then transferred to the foam. The pieces are glued using contact adhesive applied to both edges, then several layers of thinned PVA is painted on to fill the texture. Rivets are made from latex blobs … Read More

Moco Rig 9 – June 2017

Displayed and demonstrated the moco rig at the Riviera Film Festival in Torquay. Much interest from the public and other filmmakers, and from a college that is keen to construct their own. The rig performed faultlessly all day, taking a hyper lapse of the room. Two adjustments still to make: adding a small weight to pull the Pan arm to … Read More

Eyeballs

Have been making eyeballs, after trying the commercial ones and finding them not quite right.Either too brilliant white or translucent, and the ones with irises just look so exaggerated and fake! Ivory white Fastcast and micro painting, then some ultra clear Epoxy resin for the corneas. Very fiddly work! I have added some red flocking to the Fastcast to give … Read More

Moco Rig 8 – April 2017

The whole rig is finally functioning as it should, having been upgraded with a very noisy NEMA 23 for the track function. The rotation works a treat, and all except for the focus are behaving well. Focus seems to go walkabout rather alarmingly every so often, by which I mean it just chugs off in one direction without having been … Read More

Using melted Chavant clay

Progress has been made with puppet construction – now up to 30 separate characters – but things are very slow with costumes. As many of my puppet heads are done in super Sculpey, I am starting to use a method for making some of them in silicone. This involves taking a silicone mould of the hardened sculpey, then pouring in … Read More