Cuddles Walk Test Edits

I have edited some of the footage I filmed of Cuddles MkLt in order to 

experiment with backgrounds moving behind the figure walking on the spot.

The background moves a little too fast for the creatures pace of movement,

but this could be solved by looping the walk motion a couple more times.

Animating Cuddles Mk Lt

Meet Cuddles MkIII, he was built last year, as a copper recreation

of a model I built in the first year.

Since building this I have built a smaller version which I named

Cuddles MkLt this smaller version is lighter and sturdier than MkIII.

For this reason the MkLt is more suitable for animating,

I have animated several short walk sequences intended to be played on a loop.

This task was mainly to get an understanding of how my models can be animate.

I will upload the animations once I have converted them to a .gif format.

Finished Animation

Animation Raw.

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The intent is to have a looping animation almost like one of those .gifs you see all over the internet.

My First Animation

As part of the project brief I was required to produce an animation as well as a 3-D model, so I naturally put two and two together and came up with, well this. This project has been a lot of hard work, with the production of the Golem and the filming itself, because of this certain things had to be put on hold. I had initially underestimated the time needed to produce a wooden figure capable of stop-motion filming, and so rather than produce a set for filming I settled for filming on a green screen. 

The project on a whole, as I had planned it has had a rather steep learning curve, I have had to solve many problems to get the animation to work, many of which required knowledge that I simply did not have when I started the project. It is through experimentation and lateral thinking that I have completed what is merely a Prototype for future animations.

I have over the last six weeks, because of the difficulties in getting this all to work, developed the skills necessary to build a much more extravagant world to film in the future. This project has always been for me a way to build a foundation for later projects. I was worried maybe the time spent on building the Golem was unrealistic or unnecessary however looking at it now I see that those four weeks of work has produced a model that with a little touching up could be filmed countless times in future, four weeks for a lifetime, not bad eh.

This has been very enjoyable for me to do, and i am glad that I have produced so much and learned so much. I am disappointed that the bestiary, could not be filled to the amount that I had wanted, however over the year, separate to my other work I will add more entries to the bestiary as I hope to have it completed by the end of this year.

The music is from the soundtrack of Dark Souls I just thought it was quite ambient, I find peaceful and that was the feel i wanted for this animation.

Animating and such

Once I got in to college to film I was incredibly excited to start filming, it was just how things like the set came together. Seeing the figure all set up ready to film, I was just ecstatic. 
Until of course I had to start filming and that was a slog and a half, the model kept falling over when trying to animate him standing up, and then someone suggested rigging up a line to hold the weight of the model and manoeuvre him whilst he semi hangs, which I must say sped things up alot, I will have the animation done and uploaded tommorrow and then a proper evaluation can be written.

Set Pieces

This is a photo of the smaller bits of set, the second model is in the background. The second model is based off my work on the carbuncle, it is made up of a wire armature with fur sewn around to give it shape, it's a little disproportioned however it does look almost red panda-y and I like Red Pandas.