'Little Unkle' - stop motion character creation

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(Edited)

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As promised - the next entry in the 'Coolest job I ever had' series.

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I used the term 'cool' in the first title of this series of posts about my film- studio job because it was the most common reaction people got when I told them what I did. There are a lot of jobs out there that, on the surface, may seem like a dream job or a dream come true. But let's face it, life doesn't look like that at all. Probably never. I know that people tend to exaggerate and use clichés like 'living my dream', 'that's all I ever wanted' and so on...

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But! everyday life is made up of small fortunes, small successes, unfortunate mistakes and colossal disasters - at least that's how it always looks to me :) How about you, guys?

Today I would like to introduce you to the process of working on a puppet, one of the characters from the film. 'Maly Wujcio('Little Unkle') is just an uncle for the main characters of "Trefliki", but as a character he has a lot more to offer - he is a magical individual, he takes Trefliks kids on journeys – usually it would be moral tale), he can fly and he often uses his magic to help out others.


The plan for the character was to create something between a human and a gnome. Now, after years I think, that Dany DeVito would be a perfect model for this character:)

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So one by one:

Most of the characters were the result of brainstorming, but the general outline and idea for the character belonged to our director - Marek Skrobecki. Working with him was a great pleasure and, without hiding it - an adventure. Marek, in addition to great knowledge and experience, is not only a nice person, but also a guy who has an unusual distance to himself and the world. He often made fun of us and himself. He would hide behind parts of the set and scare us, sing, shout in our ears when we were working in concentration and the tools fell out of our hands. He was an absolutely charming personality.

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One anecdote has particularly stuck in my mind.
At the very beginning of the establishment of KAZstudio (when I worked there it was Stop-Motion Picture Studio - Trefl), it was located on the first floor of an old naval school building. On the ground floor there was a huge charity shop. Actually, you could call it a "curiosity cabin", because you could find there all sorts of things - from vinyl records, through antique music stands, candlesticks, books, textiles, furniture, dishes, toys. We often spent afternoons and breaks there with my co-workers. We took a liking to the ladies who ran the shop and often brought things to sell for them. As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who were fans of the shop - and we found this out in a very spectacular way.

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We were sitting on the sofa in the corridor during the break, eating sandwiches and talking nonsense, and Marek, as if nothing had happened, marched out of his office dressed as a... a ladybird.

He wore an insect headband, and a red cloak with black dots. I was thankful that I did not have food in my mouth at that moment, because it would have landed on my conversation-partner. The director with a stone face threw: "what's up Dears?" and simply disappeared in the doorway to the Puppet Department.

We laughed for a good few minutes. I still don't know if he bought the outfit to make the others feel better or if he just knew he looked good in red:)

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So we had a lot of fun at work from time to time, but usually the days were quite monotonous, because although the work itself was creative - it required close to insane attention to detail. The smallest imperfection would come out later in the shots, so you had to be extremely attentive and constantly focused. Not to mention the endless amendments and changes. Working with professionals like Sylwia(my red-headed boss-lady) or Marek requires you to keep your cool. Because changes will happen, and often. Sometimes entire character concepts went to waste, when they were actually ready to be scanned and thrown onto a 3D printer. Yeah, happened few times.

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To shed some light for you on just how tedious and long the process of making stop-motion animation puppets is, today I will show you the process of making 'Tiny Unkle' s head.

STARTING THE PROCES – SCULPTING

With such small forms as animation dolls, plasticine is a very good starting point. The Uncle's face was not very complicated to carve and the concept for his character was fortunately quite clear from the start and didn't change too much along the way. I worked on the mould with plasticine diligently for 2 days to make it very smooth. At the beginning I worked on a head without ears - because the ears were supposed to be possible to animate, but the concept changed during the process, and after do this small change - the uncle's head with ears was ready to be cast in resin.

RESIN PART

Even if the surface of the plasticine seems perfectly smooth to us, a casting in resin will prove that this is not the case. The resin mould is then covered with a spray or liquid "putty" using an airbrush in order to fill out the irregularities. The surface is then sanded until everything is perfect. And it doesn't stop there - an 'end putty' is used to give a 'controlled texture' - which will diffuse the light nicely and not concentrate in one place - which looks bad under the camera's eye.

3D SCANNING

When the uncle's head was ready - it was scanned from all sides to create a faithful 3D model. Then the head was printed in a 3D printer (we had a so-called powder printer, the powder was cellulose-based) and then fixed with liquid cyano-acrylate glue (the same composition can be found in Super-Glue). In the meantime, I worked on my uncle's facial expressions(mounths only) which were later also scanned. The Pupet department members only did the main face, such as the mouth folded into a round 'o' or a wide grin with teeth - all the intermediate faces were created in a 3D programme on the computer by our designers. The characters had between 40 to an over 100 interchangeable animation faces. The faces were swapped between shots, and were held on tiny magnets.

WHAT'S NEXT?

When the faces were printed, nicely finished and magnetised, they were taken over by those responsible for painting. At this time I worked on my uncle's moustache and hair. They were made of dyed felt fixed with glue, so that they would not move or deform between shots. So I already have a face with interchangeable faces, previously prepared eyes and hair. All we need are eyelids and eyebrows. The eyebrows were made of latex so that they could be animated and easily moved. This is a material that can not only be dyed in any colour, but also easily 'sticks' to anything, unlike silicone. The eyelids were made of thin plastic and made only by Sylva. She never showed any of us how she made them.

She had quite a few secrets there....

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I hope you guys have lovely Tusday!
Yours,
Strega Azure

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And on the set doll looked like this:

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The finished doll looked like this

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Pictures are my authorship if not stated otherwise,
all rights reserved @strega.azure©

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For those among you, that are interesting in Marek's Skrobecki creations, here you have little taste:

D.I.M.


Ichtys

Peter and The Wolf - here he was a scenographer

Here you can see introduction of 'Little Unkle' in the 'Trefliks' series
go for - 5:01

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What a meticulous art form! 😵 Also, one that is unique and delightful for the audience. This was a neat behind-the-scenes : )

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I was trying to be as clear as possible, I hope it wasn't boring or something. Although working on stuff like this can be just that :D

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No, your anecdotes made it fun. Plus, seeing the details of how stop motion is made is interesting. So much work goes into it!

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Great then! It can me really tedious occupation, but if you get results like that, it is wort it:)

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For a moment there i thought those puppets were alive, wow looks like the ones used in bestor cartoons, never knew puppets were made this way

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Yeah, it is long, long process, but it was cool to see all stages of it:) I really like when job has clear, defined start and end :)

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Of cause brings it out alive especially the passion you poured into it that was the secret ingredient, keep up the good talent, or should i say job

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It has been cool 3 years, really. Learned plenty, and that's what is most important to me:)

I will do some more posts about making dolls, hope you like those too:)

Thank you for popping by!

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Having the fun without puting the reward in that is why you've succesded and come this far,

Sure thing will be on the look out

Thank you for thanking me ☺️

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Marek, in addition to great knowledge and experience, is not only a nice person, but also a guy who has an unusual distance to himself and the world. He often made fun of us and himself. He would hide behind parts of the set and scare us, sing, shout in our ears when we were working in concentration and the tools fell out of our hands. He was an absolutely charming personality.

Some of the traits you described, remind me of my brother. Though I would say he is not having distance towards the happenings but on occasion, he is letting him being caught by mischief. He does similar things to his working colleagues. LOL

One day he made a tape border in the middle of the workshop and put a " died " spanner there. To indicate that some colleagues treat their tools very badly and he wanted to effectively stage the criminal act. LOL :D

Yes, no work is a dream came true. After you get some routine and you have to take care of all those deadlines or documentary duties, creativity will suffer. One has to pull oneself out of it by being a fool or a disturber once in a while, I agree :)

Thanks for the pictures and the process of the art shown.

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(Edited)

Your brother it is true prankster then @erh.germany! :D That's heavy, but I would say it is good approach. Creativity always go longer way than a tired, standard approach. Of course, it can be hit or miss, but it is worth to go out there form time to time:)

Yes, no work is a dream came true.

None is. But, if there is more 'good' moments it is desirable balance! Of course, it is up to us to have a point of view that works in favour our job or not. It is really rare that it is objectively good or bad. But if it is objectively bad - better to run for life, we have only one of those:)

Thanks for the pictures and the process of the art shown.

I actually discovered that documenting the process helps me to catch errors much easier. And I am quite inpatient person, so it actually helps me to get distance to what I am doing and give me time to think about what to do next. So I guess it benefits more me than the community :D

Thank you for popping by!

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Yes, my brother is a rascal, he has so many stories that he could write a book. If you want, I'll pick out one in particular. It's hilarious!

But, if there is more 'good' moments it is desirable balance! Of course, it is up to us to have a point of view that works in favour our job or not. It is really rare that it is objectively good or bad. But if it is objectively bad - better to run for life, we have only one of those:)

Well said. Yes, the moments are what make a work special and you have to actively produce them. An objectively bad work, oh how true (!), you have to leave it like the devil is after your soul. I had this experience once.

I actually discovered that documenting the process helps me to catch errors much easier. And I am quite inpatient person, so it actually helps me to get distance to what I am doing and give me time to think about what to do next. So I guess it benefits more me than the community :D

It's a very interesting aspect and for the first time I documented my own work by video and I agree, it shows you from a completely different perspective how you work and also the mistakes you make. (Other forms of documentary, though, can be killing creativity because they eat up all the time and leave little for the process itself. We call it in Germany the "administrative waterhead".)

I think that's what resolves the contradiction that "you ought to do something for others before you do it for yourself". If I do something that benefits me and it turns out that I am able to share it, the order is not something that I would have thought about beforehand. You do some things simply because they make sense to you. If they happen to make sense to others, it's good for everyone. But if I go into life with the intention that others should come first and then I, there seems to be something wrong with that. HaHa! Because before you know it, you can quickly become a victim of your altruism and then it's no longer altruism. LOL :D ... In fact, it's better if these thoughts even don't cross ones mind.

Nice to have found you. It was a recommendation from dreemsteem.

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I just love 'rascal' word, it is one of my favourite recently. I would love to read more anecdotes of this dude:)

You know, we only have this much time. And I am not saying I wasn't working in toxic, horrible environments too. I did, and it is sometimes hard to see that you are actually exploited, if you are getting 'beaten' and getting carrots right the way. Some people are just really good at controlling others, and we need time and some distance to recognize the pattern and let ourselves free. Not easy task:)

I kinda feel that stuff should came out organically - this way it is the most honest work, and more so - it will benefits you, and by extend - others too. If one is happy with what one is doing - he will share the knowledge with others, no problem. If stuff is forced ones feel quickly out of his depth, and getting frustrated, It is just never works:)

And what you've said about altruism - yeah, I know what what you're saying, learned that hard way unfortunately :D

Cool to get to know you a bit too, thank you @dreemsteem!