Weekly summary, Week 3 Mystery Box

Week 3 (week 24) mystery box     (Date. Friday The 23rd March 2018)

Over the weekend I headed to fabric and accessories shops in Anglia square. ‘Anglia Fabrics’ had very unique patterns and fabrics, however I bought white felt, a tan artificial leather scrap piece, a meter of chiffon and a red feathery accessory. Over that same weekend, I tried to glue (using a hot glue gun) the leather material as a skin to my model. This happened to be a big mistake, the material that I tried to use was very tough! My model struggled to move. Also, it was too thick, and would not flatten, overall it was very stiff and instead of taking shape of the model, would stick out. It ripped the dress I had made and when I tried to take the material off, if also ripped a lot of the foam layer away. Wreaking the body I had created for her. In which meant; I had to redo her foam, try to fix or remake her dress, and find a new skin. During the week before, she had also lost both her fifth fingers, which also had to be redone. Monday, her fingers were drilled in again. This time I was much more patient. I left her to dry whilst I experimented making her a hat, instead of working directly onto my model. I used decorated card paper to make the shape and the body of the hat. Using black, woolly like felt, I wrapped it around the paper in sections gluing it with ‘impact’ glue. Using spare ribbon and a feather I found, I glued both accessories on. For the head, I had recently purchased foam balls. I experimented with how I could make a head out of it. Attempting to apply different materials, however adding a spongy foam, and silk fabric did not work.

Later on in the week, I re added the foam to my model, and then added skin once again, this time using a white industry produced felt. It was much more shapeble, fitted the model much better, and it was able to be stretched and wrapped around her. This time I used instant ‘impact’ glue, not daring to use hot glue gun after past mistakes. Also in the session, I began making her gloves. Wrapping around the same fabric of her dress around the fingers, but different cut pieces and also around her palms. Because her dress was ruined from the glue gun, I decided to cut her dress off. This enabled me to cover full body in white felt for her skin. And then recreated the dress, with an added ribbon. I completed the dress, but needed to hem the skirt as it was far too long.

Also during the week, for the mystery box project, I had an after effects introduction, I was shown how to make objects move, backgrounds, (position, scale, rotation), how to use green screens, and weather effects, for example rain. I would like to further experiment with how I can after effects to help aid me in my editing of my stop motion.

This week I was also shown how to set up the green screen, and other tech during shooting, including techniques such as white card to help reduce green tones on the model.

Overall this has been a busy week, frustrating with having to redo, but I’m happy how my model is beginning to look.