Stop motion Hand

The idea came from when you catch your finger/toe on something, over due course, it can become inflated, right under the nail, causing a painful throb. I wanted to exaggerate this, using as an idea for when our hero gets dirt on his hand. Shot in 24 fps, i used replacement finger tips to get an overall, balloon effect.

Rough frames of guy taking ticket

Shot in 24 fps, 16:9, and in biro, just to see the basic action. I am going to keep the hair a lot more static, as it seems to go on its own pace.

hand scene- hand turning into dirt

To show, in graphic detail, the turning into dirt scene, where the protagonist's hand gets "infected" i used flash to help show the transformation. I was thinking of doing this in stop motion, as i think stop motion helps to realise the grotesque elements in the film.

New and improved bus driver

Unfortunately, due to the head being "top heavy", it has caused a slight accident resulting in the old mouth/head design to be altered. When redesigning the changes, i noticed a few flaws in my previous attempt; the mouth being too big, so the plastacine ripped and became too thin around the mouth, making it difficult to animate, due to the weight of the head, the body wasn't posturing right, in many cases the whole puppet would topple over. Now, looking back at the drawn designs of the original puppet, i have taken the idea that due to it's increased size, the body and head would move as one, so it doesn't create a dissruption during the animation process and the mouth has shrunk in size, only because the original jaw had snapped due to the teeth being unpredictable with pressure applied ( by me moving them).

So i hope this new model will get the job done, i shall be uploading new images of the finished model and the overall set design for it, so that everyone else in the group can view it and make changes if need be. I also hope to have a rough tester of the bus driver, also for group analysis.

blocking out a scene for animation

I want the scene to be the reveal of the driver, to accomplish this i was thinking having it's face to be hidden behind a magazine ( magazines and props have been made, just need to upload them). Then when it's interrupted by our protagonist, i rears it's ugly head, literally

Blocking a Scene

The slow revealing of the driver, completed on Photoshop.

Final Puppet

Bus interior

An image off google, darkened and blurred in Photoshop to create an eerie uncomfortable feeling then figures drawn in to show how much space we have to fill.

Setting a scene- the bus

The bus in the storyboard is packed full of passengers, to understand how many passengers are needed etc, Morgan has asked Jack to record his "journey" by means of photos. This will help us frame the camera angles within the scale of the interior of the bus. I have been told to look at the overall interior of the bus ( how to draw it), the entrance to the bus and our protagonist's encounter with the bus driver        (which i have been working on).

Making of the Model

Art work of Bus Driver on Photoshop

Research for Character (Bus Driver)

The Vogans from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) inspired me to think about body mass and shape, particularly in the neck area. I want the bus driver to have a slow lazy motion, to go with it's rounded body (see designs). The idea is that the driver is part of the bus, like the eyes and mouth of the vehicle so when designing him, i wasn't thinking about feet and an overall body shape. As like with many buses, you only see the top half of the driver when you enter.

 This piece of graphic art of the Vogan is roughly how i see the final model. Another version of this image is below with miner modifications to it so Morgan can see what it is i want to achieve.

Character Designs- Bus Driver

Character Designs- Bus Driver

I was given the role of looking at the idea of stop motion in our film. So immediately after viewing Morgan's first draft of the storyboard, where he used many of the groups ideas and put them into scenes. These rough designs are of the bus driver, who our 'hero' encounters. Since we started the project, i have been 'doodling' francis bacon-esk drawings, using the motif of 'if germs had a voice'. I have been looking into mouths, as a character, how to get expression and emotion from two lips, two rows of teeth and a tongue. So far, proving successful (in drawing) but when i want to apply a 3-D concept- i may have to rethink certain aspects. After the lecture with Rob Morgan, and his inspirational film 'Bobby Yeah', i would like to look into how wax can be applied, as he used wax in his puppets because "... they looked more flesh-like and give it an overall realism". 

Rough Animatic sequence of 'bus scene'

Clay sculpture of mouth "germ"

storyboard