Camera Dolly and Turntable

There are two additions to my stopmotion studio. A camera dolly and a turntable, both hand-driven and hand-made. I am going to start shooting the other film I am making with my sister soon. So, I needed these equipment now.
I will have 2 set tables for Chronos. One is going to be the main set table with tree, clock, etc.. And the other will be this turntable where I will shoot Adem away from “time” It will be a lot of fun shooting scenes over this turntable. I did a test shot yesterday for The Invasion and it works like a charm. Here how it looks:


TURNTABLE:

Turntable

First of all I do not know if this thing is called as turntable in english. It is a set table which I can turn gradually. Anyways, turntable is in 71×104 cm dimentions. There was a rotary breakfast tray in our house we bought many years ago. We have never used that strange thing for breakfast. Things like turning a tray instead of saying -hey can you please hand me the olive- always seemed silly to me. Anyways this thing was in my studio for a long time helping a lot while painting props etc and finally it has found its real place. I mounted this thing to the hardboard piece and then mounted all to my set table. A needle pointer in front and a ruler over the table. That was it!

CAMERA DOLLY:

Camera Dolly

We (Hakan, me, Zeynep and Zeytin) assembled 2 curtain rods to an hardboard in 112×47 cm dimentions. Another 38×50 cm board goes on top of curtain rods for tripod table. We placed 2 nut washers and 2 nuts in between tripod table and curtain rods while keeping the top of the bolts inside rod rails. Another nut going on top of tripod table finished the installation. We adjusted the top of bolts to not to touch rail base. So, the tripod table can easily be moved by hand. Gradual movement is achived by a paper ruler I glued over the base board and a needle pointer on tripod table. There are small wood blocks mounted over tripod table to keep the tripod in place.

Before making this camera dolly I knew that there were other stop motionists using some wonderful camera dollies. These all gave me a lot of ideas about how to build a camera dolly. I wanted to make something very simple, hand-driven. If you like to check out some other ideas here are some URLs:

Shelley’s Smoomoo

Darkstrider’s camera equipment page

Nick Hilligoss’s motor driven camera dolly

Castlegardener’s camera dolly tutorial

Tony’s camera dolly.

Bir Stop Motion Kukla İçin Ceket Dikimi

Adem ve ceketi ile ilgili yazımı yayınladıktan sonra bir arkadaşım kukla için nasıl ceket dikebileceği konusunda yardım istedi. Aşağıda ceket dikimi konusunda hiçbir fikri olmayanlara da yardımcı olacağını düşündüğüm şekilde detaylı olarak hazırladığım fotoğraflı ceket dikimi var.

Ceket Dikimi

Önce ilk resimdeki kalıbı yazıcıdan çıkarın. Parçaları kesin, kuklanız üzerinde prova yaparak gerekli ayarlamaları yapın. Daha büyük, küçük, kollar daha kısa, boyu uzun, vs… Buradaki kalıp ölçüsü 16cm boyundaki Adem’e göre. Size kendi kuklanız için önce yaka hariç kağıttan bir deneme ceketi yapmanızı ve ölçüleri ayarlamanızı öneririm. Daha sonra kumaşla kesim dikime başlayabilirsiniz.

Resimler açıklayıcı, tıklayarak büyütün.

Kuklalar için Kıyafet Dikimi ile İlgili Linkler

http://www.puppetpub.com/costumes.html
Bu linkte PDF olarak indirebileceğiniz kukla kostüm kitabı mevcut. (puppet costuming book)

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/60051
Nick Hilligoss’un kukla kıyafet kalıpları ve anlatımı. Sayfanın alt kısmında.

http://www.leenas.com/English/sew_men.html
Çok detaylı dikiş eğitimi.

Kukla Kıyafeti için Kalıp Çıkarma Programı

http://www.cochenille.com/garm.html
Garment Designer programını bedava olarak indirebilirsiniz.

Sewing Jacket for a Stop Motion Puppet

After posting pictures of Adem and his jacket, a friend wanted me to give him some instructions about how to sew a jacket. So, I have prepared a tutorial for people who does not have any idea about sewing jacket and want to make a basic one like this.

Sewing Jacket

First print out the pattern, cut pieces and modify paper patterns by putting it on your puppet, measuring different parts such as arms, neck, etc.. The patterns of sewing jacket you download here is in the size of Adem. I suggest you to make a basic paper jacket (without the collar part) and put on your puppet to make sure the correct size.

Pictures below self explanatory. You can click any step to enlarge.

[ezcol_1quarter]

Jacket pattern for sewing jacket save this image to use.

[/ezcol_1quarter][ezcol_1quarter]Sewing Jacket - Placing Pattern and Cutting Pieces[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter]Sewing Jacket - Making of Lapel[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter_end]Sewing Jacket - Making of Collar -1[/ezcol_1quarter_end]
[ezcol_1quarter]Sewing Jacket - Stitching Shoulders[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter]Sewing Jacket - Making of Collar -2[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter]Sewing Jacket - Stitching Arms[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter_end]Sewing Jacket - Stitching Sides and Arms -DONE![/ezcol_1quarter_end]

Useful Resources About Puppet Costuming and Sewing Jacket:

http://www.puppetpub.com/costumes.html
There is a wonderful puppet costuming book here which can help you dress up your puppets. You can download the entire costuming book in pdf. I recommend you to download right away and save it to your hard drive. There are not fancy costumes described. But there is basic information about everything you would need for making costumes of a stop motion puppet.

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/60051
Nick Hilligoss’s puppet clothing patterns and tutorial. Scroll down the page to see puppet clothing thumbnail on the left side.

http://www.leenas.com/English/sew_men.html
Very detailed sewing tutorial.

Software to create patterns for puppet clothing and sewing jacket:

http://www.cochenille.com/garm.html
You can download the demo of Garment Designer for free here. You can experiment different patterns here to get an idea about how to prepare patterns..

Making of Adem

Finally, I am posting about how I made Adem. Although I have posted other things separately, this post is going to be a very long one.

Other pictures I posted previously are located here. And a walk cycle test is here to post everything all together about Adem.

I had a ball&socket armature made for this guy last year. I do not have much space for the set so, I wanted to make Adem as small as possible. But, as I was working on the puppet, I was not able to make him look like the way I wanted. I am glad I also ordered some additional parts in the first place. So, eventually I replaced his legs with the longer ones. You may notice in the following pictures; first he is short and then he gets taller as seen with the additions to his pants. Actually, making of Adem was such a long process because I tried many different things for everything of him like the way I cover the armature, clothing, head,… I was both trying different designs and also getting used to working with this armature. Ok, let me start:

The Head and Covering Body with Foam

There was a double ball joint on his neck. This is the way it should be for a proper movement. But, as I was trying to make him short, I saw that he was going to have a very long neck. After couple of tries, I decided to cancel one of the joints on the neck. His head is made out of super sculpey. I covered the part of joint at the top with epoxy putty after cooking some sculpey. Then covered all with sculpey and cooked again. So, there is epoxy putty inside sculpey. It seems totally working fine. They cooked well together in the oven. There is one drawback so far, I can not change the tightness of that joint.

I covered some parts of the body with foam as it is shown on the pictures. I sewn the foam instead of gluing.

And neck.. that was another problem. Because there is a sculpey head, I was not able to use latex for the neck. Sculpey and liquid latex should not touch. I have learnt this recently after having a problem with the hands and claws which I posted about it yesterday. So, I just painted foam with acrylic to make the neck. He now has a short neck and it is looking okey. Also, I was not trying to make a total human like puppet and it was fine making the neck that way for me.

Clothing

Adem in my film represents human being. Nobody special, no hero,.. So, I wanted to make ordinary things for him.

The first pic on the left top shows my cat having fun with a box full of fabric 🙂 Old clothes of ours and friends I collected over the years. The other pictures are self explanatory. when I was a child my mother used to sew clothes for us. She had a sewing machine. It was a lot of fun for me to watch her sew. By helping her out and watching her I learnt to sew some basic stuff. So, that was good for Adem. The vest and pants were easy but making of the jacket was kind of tricky. I googled for some mens jacket patterns. Then I created patterns for Adem’s by combining the ones I found. Just drop me a line in the comments section if you want me to send you patterns. I would be happy to do that.

Weathering

Although Adem did not like it, I had to weather his clothes to match the atmosphere. No place for brand new things in Chronos. Here is the part I most enjoyed doing:

The whole technic and the materials are from Shelley Noble! She sent me so many great materials for my film. Here I used two of those; walnut ink crystals and matte medium as she described in emails.

I first bleached the parts like the collar of the jacket, cuff,… Not much, just enough to give some shading. Mixed well acrylic matte medium, walnut ink cyrstals and a little water in a plate. Dipped the jacket. And then left it hanged overnight. As Shelley said it changes color as it dries. I applied same mixture to his shoes and vest. Just some with a brush and left for drying. I love the effect here. There is a closeup pic to his jacket at the bottom right. Thank you Shelley!!!!

Hands

Since I had problem with the hands I previously made, I am not going to post details about making of these hands here. There are temporary hands.

I painted with PAX here. You can find details here in my previous post. Even if this paint works fine (which I think so) I will make the hands again beacuse I am not totally happy with the design. I dont want the hands to be totally realistic but I want little detailed and thinner than these ones.

Mask

Adem has a real face like we all have. In the film you will see him both with and without a mask. But, he wants to hide his real face until the film is completed. I wanted him to wear a mask on some parts of the film like every human being does in her/his life. Dont we all have many masks… How many of us have seen our own face?…

I made 3 different masks and decided to go with this one. Actually this was the first one I created. The other 2 you see on the left bottom were based on real shaman masks. Design of this one was totally came out of my mind. I took a piece of super sculpey and started making. No sketch, no reference pictures… I did not want the mask to have any expression. Not happy, not sad, not angry,.. So, in a way something holding all different expressions of a human face in one mask. Not a man, not a woman.. just a human.

This is how I made the mask: First cooked the sculpey mask and then painted couple times with acrylic. When you paint acrylic directly onto the sculpey with a brush you may get some scratches. To get rid of those scratches after one or two layers of acrylic paint, I applied one coat of acrylic primer and left it to dry. Then couple more acrylic layers. When I was satisfied with the acrylic base I painted with a mixture of acrylic relief paste and wax. This was where I adjusted the color of the mask by adding some brown acrylic to that mixture. I put a lot of talcum powder before it was totally dry. Left it alone for about 15 minutes and then wiped off the talcum powder with a piece of soft cloth. So, there was some powder left around the eyes, mouth,.. giving the mask an old look..

The Invasion – Time to Animate!

There is a side project I do with my sister Asuman. A stop motion film “The Invasion” I posted about this film here before. Asuman finished all and has sent me. I received a box full of effort, full of love… I have seen closely how detailed Asuman worked on this set. Each piece was created very detailed, carefully. Now, it is my turn. I need to remunerate for her great effort here while shooting this film. I am going to be getting ready this week. And I will probably start shooting by the end of the week. I will keep you posted. There were 2 gifts inside that box too. You see at the bottom right of the picture. Owls at the top is for Hakan and me. The duck family is for Zeynep. As you might guess Zeynep loved what her aunty created for her. Thank you sooooo much Asuman!Anyone interested can check out the animation process here at The Invasion I will post as I proceed..

Problem with Liquid Latex Buildup Parts

I had a problem with the hands of Adem and claws of Kush I previously made in June 2009.  Those were both fine when I first built up but after couple of months those started to get sticky. Hands became like the ones of a zombie puppet and it is not possible to hold claws because of those being too sticky. This is how I made these:

Hands: I mixed liquid latex, acrylic paint and pros-aide all together… Dipped yarn covered fingers (also there was epoxy putty on the fingers and palm) into that mixture several times to make the skin.

Claws: Yarn covered fingers and acrylic painted cartboard claws dipped into liquid latex several times.

I posted about the problem on stopmotionanimation.com Here is the link of that thread: … (edit on Jul 2015: that thread does not exist anymore..)
The problem with the hands seems like is me mixing pros-aide and latex. Liquid latex is a great material to create skin for the puppets. But there are some importants things to remember when working with latex. Please check out the above URL for more.

I have remade the hands. Used PAX paint. Many thanks to Darkstrider who wrote me about that on that post. If you are interested you can check out the forum URL above.

Claws of Kush are still waiting for me to be fixed. I only used latex on the claws so I am not sure what was the problem. I am going to make a test part by using only latex. There are the PAX painted hands I have aready made. So, I will be able to see what happens to these parts in a couple of months before I start animation.

http://youtu.be/luWDdYGkpGk.