Celso Mouth Set

Carrying on with the Celso Skull, I have reduced his eye size a bit, as advised by my followers' comments, added some "hairs", and started scultpting mouth shape that will be eventually 3D printed just like for Manny.

As mentioned earlier I am using zBrush and I am still at the beginning of the learning curve. Lessons learned: it is much easier with a Wacom tablet, and Layers are an awesome way to store and mix shapes in zBrush. Challenges still unresolved: When starting from a rest-open shape (like the upper left skull in the strip below), remodeling the mouth to a narrow "O" is really a pain as the geometry gets really stretched.

(For those experts in zBrush out there, I am sculpting in Dynamesh, but the Layer feature prevents me from re-meshing... leaving me in a quandary... either not using layer or not re-meshing)

Celso Mouth Set strip

I am back!

My exam and few other annoying things now well behind me, I have no more excuse and need to get back at this project. Thanks for all of you who have sent me emails and comments to encourage me to pursue a project which has been sleeping for about a year.

To re-enter gently into the GF atmosphere I have decided to review Celso's head. Chay did a great design, but once 3D printed, its upper skull turned out to be too spherical for a character who is meant to have a long sad, somehow frightened face.

It was also the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about zBrush by revisiting an existing and relatively easy concept.

 Here is the result: on the right, Chay's original design and on the left my revisit. Tell me what you think...

Puppet making: Shoe shine

So... one of the first scene I will have to shoot is a close-up on Celso's shoes...

... and I thought I did a pretty good job with my first ever shoes sculpting attempt...

... until I got on Joshua Flynn's blog and saw this...

How humiliating... and stimulating... So I went back to my clay and managed to get to this...

By the way, the fact that I am sculpting shoes separately from the rest of the body hints that I am changing strategy... looking at Flynn's brothers amazing puppets (discovered thanks to a nice comment posted by Dead End), I really think I am going to give up with latex foam and try to do the puppet in fabrics instead... The above shoes would be used for making a hard mold and a RV silicon cast. looks easier than the foam latex way.

Celso's skull 3D print (1rst test)

Hey, Chay! This one is for you!

Puppet making: Iron man evolution

Left: Manny's clay modelling armature, Center: Manny's animation armature, Right: Celso's animation armature

Just finished Celso's animation armature this week-end.

So, how are we going to dress up Manny and Celso? I keep pondering on that one. And, for Manny in particular, I have a problem.

Animation puppets can be padded with foam, then dressed up with puppet clothes, but fabrics tend to be messy for stopmo animation : It does not stay in place and move from shot to shot.

Ideally those animation armature would be dressed in molded foam latex: a flexible foamy material with a realistic (non porous) skin, think stress-balls. But the process to get there is long and tedious :

1. First a clay-modelling armature must built with the same dimensions as the animation armature. This is what you can see in the picture on the left.
2. Then master shape of the puppet is molded and sculpted around the armature.
3. Then a 2-part mold of the clay-sculpted "master" is made in plaster
4. Only then the animation gets placed, somehow in the middle of the inverted body shape of the mold, and some scary 5-part cocktail of chemistry is poured into the mold. The whole thing is placed in a oven (but given the toxicity of the stuff, NOT your kitchen oven) and after some curing, fuming and foaming the puppets can be released from its mold and
5. finishing, imperfection corrected (i.e. bubbles), painted.

I have never done anything like that before. And most of the recommended ingredient for this magic are not available where I live.

I take this opportunity to pay a tribute to  John Ikuma from Stopmotionmagazine.com. John has made a serie of incredibly informative and well produced tutorial which make the whole process look almost easy. Most of what I know about the craft is coming from him. John, if you read this blog, a big THANK YOU! Your website and Youtube channel are best of breed.

So what's the problem about Manny?

Well... in the end of the movie, Manny undresses. He removes his reaper cloak to be revealed all his splendor in a business suit! That sequence is going to be very tricky. I need to make a black reaper cloak that can be undressed (that will have to be fabric, no choice) and have Manny inside wearing a suit (ideally in painted foam latex, but the process looks scary). And don't get me started on these pneumatic leg-extenders. How the hell am I going to build this?

Well I guess, time is on my side...

Puppet making: Chay's take on Celso's skull

Celso's CG 3D sculpt by Chay

Yesterday was my birthday, and incidentally I had a great gift awaiting in my inbox. Chay is a very talented graphic designer and a GF fan. Chay has apparently mastered a radically innovative 3D modelling software called zBrush which allows you to sculp model pretty much the same way you would with clay (adding matter, bloking out, smoothing, chiselling).
I approached him after seeing a great fan-art 3D rendition of Manny's character, and he generously accepted to help this project.
It's always embarrassing to ask an artist to deliver a work in the same style as another artist, but I wanted some design consistency with Manny's existing skull model and I sheepishly asked him if he could stay close to Tom Beg's own fan art rendition of Manny's skull.
I am really amazed by the model that he sent me, not only it is beautifully executed, but it also falls right in the stylistic "spot" which I was hoping for.
This GF-Fan community is amazing.

Puppet Making: Celso's armature proportions

After yesterday's "Usual Suspects" lineup, here is the adapted armature for Celso. Same height as Manny, different body shape.

Puppet Making: Early tackle on Celso

"Do you recognize any of these skeletons Ma'am?"

The day-job has been in the way lately. But the project keeps moving slowly and surely : The set needs to be dressed up and some materials have already been identified. I am thinking of using some snooker-table type of textile to emulate the dark blue carpet in the office, while doing the walls by simply pritting out a pre-shadowed wall texture on cardboard paper and gluing the sheets it to the wall, like a normal wall-paper.


I have also started to think about Celso Flores, a minor character of the game, but who is the main dialog partner of Manny during the intro-movie that we want to re-create.  While both Manny and Celso are about the same height, Celso is much more anatomically correct than Manny (yet far less alluring!), with higher pelvis, shoulder, and a far less elongated skull. This difference of body shape will affect the armature design , which will soon follow.