Research Into Building Stop Motion Puppets

How To Create A Stop Motion Puppet

A stop motion puppet needs to be designed for the purpose of the film and what it will be required to do. It needs to be strong enough to hold a pose between frames, and needs to withstand being touched and moved frequently.

Making sure that the puppet is the right size for use is the first thing to consider. Puppets that are too small will be hard to create detail and will be difficult to manoeuvre. Also puppets that are too tall will often be difficult to keep in position between frames and will also be costly as the set will have to be big to fit the puppet in the environment.

So designing the characters that are fit for purpose and work within the desired world created for them is the best place to start before making the puppet.

measuring for an armature I 

made in my stop motion module.

Creating a wire skeleton to put the clay or silicone over will ensure the puppet will stay in position and will bend for the joint movement.

A quick armature I made as a practice.

In future models I will make the armature a lot 

sturdier to withstand the frequent movement.

Padding out the skeleton with styrofoam will make the puppet lighter than if it was padded out with plasticine or clay.

Armature made for practicing sculpting

in my stop motion module.

After the skeleton has been padded out the clay or silicone can be added over the top to create a skin.

In places where there is going to be clothes, the padding wont necessarily won't need to be covered as this will be adding weight that isn't needed.

I have a demonstration link for silicone mold making here: 

http://louisestopmotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/silicone-mold-making.html

Making Norman From ParaNorman

Face Replacements

For the head most modern stop motion films will use face replacements.

This means the facial expression can be taken out and replaced with another one.

Rapid prototyping, or 3D printing is to create a 3D computer model and have it printed out as a physical replica. The technology behind rapid prototyping has many other uses and implications in itself, but in the film Coraline (2009) helped put it on the map for the use as an animation technique. The area of the film where it was used the most was the facial animation on certain main characters. The faces on characters like Wybie, Coraline's Mother, Other Mother, and Coraline herself consisted of thin replacement masks that we removed and replaced for each frame of the animation.

Priebe, K. A. and Selick, H. (2010) The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation [With CDROM]. 1st edn. Boston, MA: Course Technology Cengage Learning.

I found this YouTube video by animateclay on how to make replacement heads, it's helpful in the way he shows how to mould the heads and where to position the cut-off point.

The Making Of The Sets And Replacement Faces Of ParaNorman

Character Designs For Here Be Monsters

 Poly Bernatene's Original Characters

Pirates 

Monsters

As there are only 3 speaking pirate characters, I will only make 3 moveable puppets. Making all 8 of the characters would be a big task for a small animation project.
I can make the other characters out of clay if I have time to be stationary in the background of the scene.

Also for the monsters I will only make the parts that can be seen in the book. This will save time and materials when the whole character won't be seen.

0. 
   
1. Images from the card game on Jonathan Emmett's website: http://www.scribblestreet.co.uk/pictures/herebemonsters/herebemonsters.html
2. Sourced 16/7/2015
3. 
   
4. Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books. 
   

Dragonframe Program

At Worcester University the stop motion software they use is Dragonframe.

As I haven't used this program before I wanted to research into how to use it before going back to university in September.

I have been looking at their website for tutorials.

http://www.dragonframe.com/tutorials.php

It has been used by top stop motion companies such as Aardman and Laika.

I have found that it works similarly to iStop Motion, in that it allows the user to see the previous frame on the camera screen (onion skinning). And go back to previous frames to adjust the frame rate.

This software is further advanced because it allows the user to control the external lighting also the movement of the camera.

User Guide

http://www.dragonframe.com/downloads/Dragonframe%20User%20Guide%20-%20Mac.pdf

My Own Character Designs

Just incase I was unable to use the original character designs from the book I looked at designing my own characters for the film.

First I looked at other pirate films for inspiration.
Pirates Of The Caribbean 

Pirates In An Adventure With Scientists

Peter Pan's Hook

Hook film

Once Upon A Time's Hook

As a first thought I liked the idea of having the captain and the crew all as mice.
I looked at other films that have had mice in them for inspiration.

Cinderella

Dumbo

Stuart Little

Pinky And The Brain

Danger Mouse

Sketches of mice

As my film is going to be for children I want to make the character designs simple. This is will also make the modelling of the character easier and more suitable for stop motion.

Something similar to this, but depending on which character in the story I use this for, because for the Captain I want to use more triangle shapes to give him an edgy, scary feel. And for the rest of the crew circle body shapes to show they are more submissive and aren't as dangerous as the Captain.

About Here Be Monsters

Here be monsters is a children's picture book written by Jonathan Emmett.
This book has changed many times over the 18 years of making and was once going to be a pop-up book about a little girl that uses a map to find monsters.
As this idea wasn't being accepted by publishers, Jonathan Emmett shelved the idea and continued to work on other books.
After working with illustrator Poly Bernatene on two other books, Jonathan brought out Here Be Monsters again and began to re-work the story.
Sending the story off to Poly Bernatene to work on Jonathan got a surprise when the characters came back as animals instead of humans.
He soon warmed up to the idea and with a few adjustments to make the characters more menacing the book was finished.
http://www.scribblestreet.co.uk/pictures/herebemonsters/herebemonsters.html
Sourced 6/7/2015

The treasure-hungry Captain Cut-Throat leads his villainous crew on a perilous journey to a mysterious island, surrounded by mist.
Disregarding warnings that the mist is teeming with monsters, the Captain urges the crew to sail on.
"Monsters simply don't exist!" the Captain assures them, but the unfortunate crew soon discover otherwise.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61031.Jonathan_Emmett/blog?page=5
Sourced 6/7/2015


Jonathan Emmett is a children's author and paper engineer based in Nottingham. He has written over 50 children's books and has been published in over 30 different languages.
http://www.scribblestreet.co.uk/author/biog.html
Sourced 6/7/2015

Poly Bernatene is an Argentinian born illustrator who has worked in advertising, animation and comics, he has had over 60 published books over many different countries.
http://www.polybernatene.com/#!about/c240r
Sourced 6/7/2015

0. Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books.