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
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
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
First shot and making thatch
At last a shot completed! The silhouetted hounds of hell rising up from behind the reeds with their eyes flashing. Achieved using small torches mounted on the rig, and each hound attached to a vertically-mounted winder. The moco rig tracked in nicely to give the shot a bit more movement and a sense of foreboding. The first still has just … Read More
Early days – 2017
This is the first of my occasional posts on progress with the project. It has been nearly 4 years since I first thought about making the film, and much of the time has been spent learning the craft, building a studio/workshop and constructing a moco rig (see posts on the Studio page). During this time I have refined the screenplay, … Read More