Base head mesh for student 3D Printing projects

One of the things that we want to support on the Animation Award is 3D printing; particularly for replacement puppet heads. It is a massive growth industry that will change the principles of consumerism in years to come, but right now it bridges the gap between CGI and traditional puppet making really well; making it relevant for Traditional Drawn, CGI and Stop Motion animators.

Replacement Puppet mouths from Aardman's 'Pirates; an Adventure with Scientists', create in CGI and printed.

              

Above is an excellent example of student work at Staffordshire University; by Andy Bell; Level 6 Stop Motion Animation & Puppet Making. All these mouths had to be hand made, which works for some people but not everyone.

The base head below should give one ore route to the pipeline options already available.

            

But it is a bit of a big ask to get Stop Motion students to get there heads around Maya in the time frame needed to make their puppets heads from scratch; as they tend to have the least interest in CGI; being more craft based by nature. 

So I have created a base mesh head with a replacement jaw ready to be adapted to their own character designs. Hopefully this year we can start to use this to speed up the development of replacement heads and mouths for student films. 

Fortunately our Engineering Department is well equipped with several different types of Rapid Prototyping machinery so getting them printed on site is straight forward. 

Mesh density is much higher in areas where the eyes and mouth will be modeled.

The bottom jaw can be secured using a small inlaid magnet with a steal plate inside the head.

Jabberwocky in Stop Motion at Staffordshire University Stop Motion Animation & Puppet Making degree course.

These are some stills from the student short film version of Jabberwocky; currently being filmed by the level 5 Stop motion Animation students.

The trench was built in forced perspective to create depth. The. Trench is only a couple of feet deep, but looks much longer.

This is the young soldier who is the hero. The Vorple sword is now a rifle with a bayonet fixed to the end.

The no-mans-land set starts off as an eerie white, in stark contrast to the muddy look of the trench scenes.

I decided to make the Jabberwocky myself, as the students had plenty to do with the two sets and the soldier puppets.

The Jabberwocky was just going to be a cross bred world war 1/2 tank, but it developed into a machine that transforms as it rolls towards; sprouting four legs to walk on.

Initially it would have looked too narrow if I had stuck to the original designs, so I made it wider on Photoshop.

The tank is very light weight. It is mostly made from hard foam and foam board with slim wood supports.

Since the tank is quite complex there is only one size. Originally it was going into two different scale sets. Now it will be filmed against blue screen for all of its shots.

Staffordshire University Degree Shown 2012 Opens

After one hell of a full-on week, the 2012 Staffordshire University Animation Awards Degree Show opened on Friday 15th June, and it looks great. This year we have three Awards showing work; BA (Hons) Animation, BA (Hons) Stop Motion Animation, and BA (Hons) 3D Character Animation.

As a front piece the students have drawn a large mural of all the characters from their final films on the wall outside. Sadly this wall will be demolished as soon as the show is over, to make way for the worlds biggest corridor.

The opening was busy and we saw a few old faces.

Just down from the Degree show is  Ade Tooth's Pop-up comic shop; selling comics created by level one BA (Hons) Cartoon & Comics Arts students.

More photos to come of puppets, after I take them...