The Invasion – Set work almost done

The Invasion. This is a film I am making with my sister Asuman. She has been working hard to get things together on the set. It looks like I am going to be shooting in a couple of months. This is going to be an interesting small film showing the human invasion… Asuman is a graphic artsist who likes to experiment different things in art. She has been doing some beautiful “ebru” and her idea of making a stop motion film using her ebru sounded very interested to me. So, we are getting there… She has one or two months work before sending me all the pieces. I am so excited to shoot soon..

An Amazing Bird Puppet!

http://youtu.be/FxudKL1IB6U
Someone on stopmotionanimation.com message board posted the URL of a music video by Bowerbirds a while ago. There is an amazing crow puppet here. He said that he made the armature for the wings. I asked him if he could send me some photos of the puppet before it was foamed and feathered -which he offered in the first place- but he could never get back to me. I love the  puppets, animation, effects, music… just everything here.

Thanks to that person who showed me this video and kudos to him & every other people who worked on this music video!.

Birds in the Nests, Nests in the Tree

Yes, it is finished… Tree of life, birds, nests. I will work on the roots when making the rocky surface but other than that all done. You can click to below picture to enlarge.

tree of life

It is 4:35 in the morning. Another stolen night to spend on stop motion is almost over. Away from my all duties; taking care of my daughter, working to make money, taking care of the house, cooking, doing dishes,.. 🙂 I feel like every moment I spend on this film is a stolen one and I think I like to steal a lot! Anyways… a beautiful end summer night; sitting in the garden with mosquitoes, hearing cats fighting in our neighbor’s garden, feeling good after preparing pictures to post here.

Ok, what I have done lately and how I done;

Making of the “Big Bird”

I made some small birds to place in the tree of life representing the “souls” out of super sculpey and posted here previously. I needed one to animate. Nothing complex; just one bird to be able to raise her head. Here you see her:

Super sculpey again. But made the head seperately, connected to body with a piece of wire. Glued some foam. Covered foam first with “real fleece” which Shelley sent me 🙂 and then with some goose quill from our sofa.

She is nothing like the “Big Bird” from Sesame Street but somehow she reminded me of Big Bird at the moment I finished her.

Bird Nests..

This was challenging. Needed to look like bird nests but at the same time I wanted these to be strong; as being home for the souls. Metal but comfortable. After trying some different ideas, I ended up using pine cones. And boom! Cutting pine cones was harder then cutting steel… I am serious. Have you ever tried cutting pine cones with Dremel? I broke many blades made for cutting metals. Dust, smell,… had my respirator and protective clothes to keep myself safe 🙂

I painted cones with black acrylic and then stainless steel colored acrylic paint (which Shelley  sent me. Thank you!!) Dyed some raw looking yarn into green with acrylic again to tie the metal cones to the branches. Added moss around the nest after tying up.

Tree of Life Mooodddiifficccaattion:

Collected some bark, killed the bugs with mosquito spray inside a bag. Left those in the air for couple hours to get rid of the poison. Covered the trunk with these barks and the glued moss all around.

I use old newspapers to keep the table clean. As I was working on the tree, I saw a small article right next to the roots of the tree about “Tim Burton” There is a Tim Burton exhibition at MoMA between November 22, 2009–April 26, 2010 No way for me to go as NY is kind of far away from where I live 🙂 But, anyone living in NY and have not heard about this exhibition can check details here http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/313

Made many more new branches, added to the tree. Glued some more leaves.

The last picture on the right bottom is showing the quick background painting I did today to shoot the tree. The final background will be more like a real sky. This one was just for fun..