Exeter model making course

In week 5 I made some more changes to the scale drawing and prepared to start building. On Tuesday I had a first go getting familiar again with the machines in the fabrication centre and drilling some ball bearings with the 'kit' for ball and socket armature making that was there, developed by someone not working there anymore. I figured out that I could not use this kit for the smaller holes I wanted to drill, neither for the smaller ball bearings I wanted to use. So I knew I would have to make a tool myself.

Most week I've been in Exeter for a three day model making course, leaded by model maker Gill Bliss from Aardman. Below are some pictures from the work I've been doing at the course (I'm looking really angry, let's call it concentration...).

Each day we had separate assignments. The first day was about research and designing on paper, then transferring the 2D design into a 3D clay maquette. I choose to follow up on the bird character in the hope it could give me some fresh ideas for the design, but this may not have been the best choice for the course. I learned that I would have to let go of what had been in my head all time for these three days to make most from the course. Still it did give me the opportunity to sculpt a more detailed version of a possible head design. See picture below for a close-up of the final sculpt.

The second day was about making a full figure that was half maquette, but should have 2 moving parts. I choose to work not work from my own design this time and tried sculpting/building from the sketches for a tiger inspired character from Andy. It was a useful exercise to try and interpret the 2D design of someone else, not having any more information then what is to be seen in the drawings.

I had a portfolio session this day as well. I got some really good advice on naming of skills on my cv and the organizing of work on my model making page of my portfolio. I definitely want to spend some time soon improving my portfolio and cv from the given advice.

Last day of the course we worked on wire armatures with replaceable parts. To make the exercise most useful I decided to work closely from female proportions, as my latest puppets were all male characters. I'd like to finish the armature another time and possibly skin it and give it some tests, trying to give it some female character in the animation as well. We also talked about job roles and careers in model making and watched a behind the scenes documentary on Aardman. Especially a lot of the talking and advice in between has been really useful, and it has been good to practice some sculpting and designing again as well, and to be forced to produce something in a given (short) time.

Character design

I felt the need to establish the character more clear. This was actually done some time before the later versions of the scale drawing and wing prototype, but I am mixing some order because I am writing this all later.

Below are some of the sketches I did trying to get a more finalized look of the bird character. The bird is very vulture like, and I'm enhancing the wrinkly neck/head features some of these birds have. I still feel like I'm staying too close to reference images and would like to go a bit more extreme in stylizing, but I'm not sure how to go about this. I don't feel like I'm there yet with the design, but it seems like it would be taking me a lot more time, and as character design is not the area I'm trying to develop now for this project I feel like I need to move on with the technical side.

wing prototype

Below some more detailed drawings where I was trying to measure the different parts needed for my wing design (ah, I just see now that there is still some thought written down there about needing many little screws for the attachment of each feather. Something I already rejected as it is probably over complicating things and could just be done with some simpler attachment, like perhaps some not so permanent glue, or even using polymorph around the wire and little plate with hole.).

Below are some pictures of the making of a card, glue and wire prototype of the idea, using the exact measurements as above. I finished mainly the lower arm part as it was enough to test the basic concept. I did cut out the bits for the 'hand' part of the wing as well, but did not put everything together yet. It would be difficult for these parts also as they include ball and socket joints. which I can't make with the card anyway, so the 'prototype' would there end up being more of a maquette and therefore less useful. Movement wise it won't be as sufficient as the 'real' version in metal anyway, mostly because I didn't incorporate screws in this version, so the tension cannot be adjusted. The main things I learned from making this prototype was that the little plates definitely would need rounded edges at the top, to not come in each other way, and also, especially the ones on the side, should be quite narrow or a bit further apart from each other, as they could now not pivot as much as the others, while especially for the outer ones that would be quite important.

Also I discussed this idea with Arril and his opinion was that it was unnecessary complicated for something that is a tool for a film rather then a alone standing machine ready for an exhibition. It made me think and consider what I had done so far again. The story and film is key usually, but I do not have a real story yet here, as it is my aim and project for now to make the character and learn about armature design and ball and socket armature making and improving my skills in all this. I had some doubts about my aims after this talk and while talking later to Tom (fellow student) I tried to form my thoughts clearer. Do I need to have a clearer story? What decisions did I make already about the birds' functioning and performance? It is quite unusual to have a plan for an animation character but not of the exact final project where it would be featuring in. Is this bad? Should I spend time now on developing a story?

scale drawing drawing

I've been spending a lot of time on getting the scale drawing right, and still probably have to re-adjust parts. It is a good way though to visualize and find problems and uncertainties before having built anything. While drawing I found many things I still had questions about. I started looking up bird proportions of wing span vs body length, etc. then referred back to my anatomy drawings and research for the type of joints and sizes and placing of wing feathers, etc. At the same time if brought me further into the questions I still had about making ball and socket armatures and joints, the choices about what sizes and material to use, etc. The first drawing I made I wasn't clear about the position of individual joints, how exactly the holes and screws should be lined up, what sizes the different parts should be, etc. After making the wire prototype wing I had found some issues with the proportions and changed that in the design. I am still considering where exactly the rigging points should come and changed the idea of using k&s for this after discussing with Arril (tutor) to using some method with a simple rod sticking out and a screw system at the end of the rig. After talking with David in the fabrication centre I decided I should scale up most of the joints, or perhaps then the scale of the entire puppet. After seeing the 'ball and socket joint making kit' developed by someone at the university (with several jigs for making one certain size of joint) and after reading carefully through some armature making tutorials I am considering some changes of size, etc again. Ok, that can go into another post later about my further research into armature making.

wing fold test

A little test with the very simple wire & polymorph wing armature I made. It still looks a little odd, I was figuring out what had to happen while doing it and it doesn't move as smooth as a bird would do it probably, but it doesn't look entirely wrong, so I guess I just have to study more birds and do more tests...

I did find in this prototype that it wasn't ideal to have the lower arm part of the wing have 'fixed' feathers, as I couldnt let them fan in with the rest, even if only slightly. Therefore they were sticking out very much sideways, which I think is not right.

Action analysis

I've spent a lot of time looking at birds folding their wings, birds flying, birds taking of and landing (which involves folding their wings). Most of the time though a lot of this folding of wings, and I'm still unsure how exactly it works. It's a pretty complicated mechanism... I got a much better idea though.

The blog I had made last year for my action analysis module came in use now to have another look at my research of birds movement back then. I also looked at some nice high speed slow motion videos on youtube of birds of prey, and downloaded a video of a group of vultures constantly landing and taking off (and fighting with each other) from different angles, which was quite useful to click through frame by frame.

My old action analysis blog on birds in flight: http://howdotheymove.weebly.com/birds-in-flight.html

When a bird folds its wing they move their 'arm' upwards first ('hand' is still pointing downwards), they spread it out, move it upwards, then the 'hand' with primary feathers is folding in and folding underneath the secondary feathers (of arm). The primary feathers really seem to curl around. All feathers are 'squashed' more together. I first thought that the secondary feathers would be quite fixed, but they seem to also fan in a little.

I found the following document about drawing birds quite helpful, especially for the section that covered the different layers of feather + how they behave when folding the wing. http://majnouna.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-Birds-part-1-22106533

Below are some very pretty drawings... I made while watching slow motion videos of birds, to figure out what they were doing with their wings while folding. them It is not entirely clear, as it wasn't entirely clear to me yet either...

Next is a break down of some fragments of the video I downloaded to study wings folding. It was helpful seeing them from different angles.

feather approaches

Even though I will be spending much time on the armature first, I felt it was necessary to gather some thoughts about how to construct the feathers for the birds, especially for the wings, as their attachment will be a direct part of the armature, and the feathers themselves will need some sort of wire at least at the tips to be able to move there. I had a little play with different things I had laying around and trying to think what may work. If I want to be able to manipulate the feathers, real feathers are no option. I have been considering if it really would be possibly to get some neat -non-fluffy- feathers and incorporate some wire in it somehow, but it seems like it will only complicate things more... finding the right sizes, fiddling around with wire & glue or what not... No, I will have to think of some stylized approach. The question is then, how stylized do I want to go? Definitely not fowl play bird style. Can I use some paper or card? Or fabric? Or even a really thin cast of some material of a real or sculpted feather shape?

I was wondering if something with really thin hard foam would work, or something like the foam sheets used for the fowl play birds, but thinner, and then this foam could be cut and painted for more character. I did a little test with the foam sheet I still had, and then tried to slice a really thin slice of foam from the red yoga blog I used for the fowl play birds bodies (the top and bottom solid parts). It is difficult to cut that neat though. I still had some very thin aluminium sheet (but a lot thicker then foil...) which I used now to cut little strips for in the middle of the feather, to see if it would work keeping the whole thing thinner, I attached it to the outside and dipped some coloured latex on top to hide it. The rest of the foam feather was shaped and painted. I do like the look of the feather, but I'm not fully convinced yet. I'd like to try some other approaches still.

I also had some white synthetic 'hair' picked up from the scrap store some time ago and noticed that I could lay it out quite neatly and then glue it together with spraymount, to make a sheet of actual lined 'hairs' as in real feathers. It looks nice, but it's not easy getting it nice and it seems not very strong...

vultures

The 3rd week already (has been the 4th when I finally upload this message) and I have been doing many things, but found it difficult to get it organized. Time to get some things down here to see what I have been doing and where I'm at now.

During the first week I have mainly been researching a lot of birds and their anatomy. I looked in books in the library and went to the wildlife department of the Bristol museum, I made a lot of sketches, of which I will share a couple later on. I also collected many images to define the style and look of the bird character I want. I already knew that I wanted some kind of large bird, so from an early stage started to look into birds of prey. I came across the vulture, and decided that this would be a really interesting type of bird to base my character on.
Although I want the bird to be anatomically a lot closer to a real bird then the Fowl play birds, I don't want to recreate an existing bird. I want the bird to have its own character.

What really caught my interest of the vulture is its 'uglyness' which at the same time makes him so beautiful. The weight shifting walk with its head hanging low at the end of its long neck makes him a very typical character already. Then there is the opposite look when the bird is flying, and its movements are very majestic and graceful. His wingspan is enormous and makes him a mighty appaerence.

I like the idea of an old character, a bird with a deep frown in its face, expressive but tired eyes, a curved beak with a little hook in it, and some roughness in its textures and colours, reflecting the time that has passed, leaving an aged body. Perhaps there are some feathers missing, there might be a scar in its neck, or even on other places of its body. I think the head would be the most important part of the body to portray the character. Perhaps it would need some more 'humanized' shapes/alterations to give him more readable expressions. The character is slow when he is walking, and doesn't seem very efficient doing this.
However, when he is flying, the bird is still in its full glory. Despite his age the bird will never forget how to fly... He flies without thinking, and it seems to cost him no effort. He is dancing in the sky.

I was also considering making it a female vulture, but I am not sure about this yet. I don't know how much difference there actually is in the appearance between female an male vultures...

I have been still looking at many different birds bird shapes, to consider if I would combine certain elements. But then there are still even many kinds of vultures. I like the 'creepy'  look of the Griffon vulture, but then there are other vultures with more streamlined bodies and more bare skin on their feet, which I would like to incorporate in my design. Also to make it easier for animating, not having this big mess of feathers at the body and legs. The feathers will be quite an issue to get right, which I am already trying to come up with methods for, but that is something I will leave for a next post.

Below is a selection of vulture images that inspire me for this character, I keep collecting more and more, but it would not be very helpful sharing all of them here.

Anatomy of birds, and feathers...

It is very different working on a character that is not a human. You can't just stand up and 'feel' how a certain movement works, and although it is quite easy to think of where the hair of a human grows and how the bones of its arms work, it is a lot more complicated to try and imagine how it feels to fold up a wing and to understand all the layers of primary, secondary and-endless-ary feathers.
Even though the characters in Fowl play were practically birds, they were a much simplified version. Really they were cartoon characters with human like behaviour, based on birds.

I did a lot of research already in the first two weeks, and keep researching more. The basic skeleton for most birds has a similar shape, but proportions are different for any kind of bird, so I will have to take those of a vulture in account mainly for my final design.

Getting the general skeleton shape of a bird right was not too difficult. Looking at several images and a real skeleton in the bristol museum and relating them to the 'skinned' bird helped me to figure out the working of the legs and feet, how and where the wing tails are attached and what is the basic shape of the skull and placing of the jaw bone. A first main challenge is now to understand how wings work. They are pretty complicated mechanisms. The initial bone structure isn't that complicated: it is practically like an arm, where the main feathers are attached to the lower arm and the hand. There are some small feathers on a seperate 'thumb', then the largest 'fan' of feathers is practically the birds' 'hand'. There are two main layers of feathers, then there are extra layers of small feathers going up to the hand. Another feather layer comes from the birds' body and from there joins up with the wing, but it is not attached to the wing. I am not exactly sure actually at the moment what is attached to the upper arm, something more to investigate...

Now the extra challenge is that feathers are not stiff: they move with the wind, and especially the long feathers will move in secondary actions with the bird's movements. This means that all the wing feathers have to be poseable. They have to swing up and down, but also fan in and out and curl up into a small package when the birds has its wing folded to its body, and with the same ease move out again into a huge spreaded shield. A lot more action analysis to do...

(above images are gathered from google as part of my research and I do not own them)

Below I scanned in some of my sketchbook work during my research into birds... I started looking at different birds and studying their anatomy, at the same time I was already sketching some rough ideas I got from that for the armature construction. Later I was trying to define more of the final character look, narrowing it down to a vulture kind of look, but still looking at what typical features of other birds and creatures I could use. Note that in the first drawings I'm even still considering bats, or bat type of wings, but I fell too much in love with the beautiful big bird of prey feathery wings.... A nightmare for stop motion puppets, so why not?

(the drawings are in sort of chronological order in which I drew them throughout my research)