A year of stop-motion and a new camera to celebrate!

I have been adventuring in the art form that is stop-motion animation for about a year now, so I've just treated myself to a factory refurbished Panasonic Lumix FZ50! Oooooh, shiny....
I can't shoot any animation with it at the moment because I'm waiting for an AV capture card for my laptop to turn up, but I am going to use it to take some photos of my industrial set and puppets later on. I'm also waiting for a full set of lens filters to turn up for it, so I can have some fun experimenting with those.

Twelve months ago, I'd been obsessively researching stop-motion 12 hours a day for a couple of weeks. I'd signed up to SMA, I'd ordered a webcam, but I hadn't yet pushed a puppet (that happened for the first time on the 17th March).

Anyway, I don't think it is an understatement to say that stop-motion has changed my life (sounds rather melodramatic, but it's true).
If you'd have told me 2 years ago that in 2009 I'd be alive, happy and relatively stable, I would never have believed you. I wouldn't have been able to even imagine that I could make a stop-motion animation. The idea of me actually thinking about a 'career' of any kind would have been laughable.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, in a long-winded and inept way is thankyou to everyone who has encouraged me, given me advice and helped me build my confidence over the last year:

Everyone on SMA and everyone who has commented on my blog or my youtube channel - thankyou so much. Seriously, without all of you I'd have never even got started, let alone had the confidence and motivation to keep on animating.

Thanks to my partner Daz and my parents who have encouraged me and supported me completely during my stop-motion adventure.

Thanks also to Dr. Pradip Patel for teaching me that the only way I was going to learn to cope with the world was to accept my difficulties and focus on my strengths, and also for telling me that my brain isn't broken, it's unique.

When I started this adventure, I set myself a target of being able to produce professional standard stop-motion animation within a year. I never expected to reach the target, it was just something to aim for and keep me focused. 'Professional' does cover a wide spectrum, and I still have many years of work before I reach the standards of Nick Hilligoss and Ron Cole, but if we define 'professional' as whether people are willing to pay me to animate, then I have succeeded in my mission!

Thanks again everyone :)

EDIT: Thankyou also to my late grandmother Edna who left me the money with which I bought my new camera. She never got to see any of my animations, but I think she would approve. Thanks Grandma!

Treasure!

I have recently accumulated some interesting bits of 'treasure' (please note that my idea of treasure differs greatly from most people's).

First up - things I have been given. Daz, my main contributor of unusual junk has excelled himself recently. My favourite objects are the transparent electronic switch thingies (at least I think that's what they are - they came from an old 'plant room control board' apparently...) at the top left - perfect for monster technology! He has also brought home some little lightbulbs, the insides of an Xbox 360 (not pictured) and some kind of dial and switch arrangement (from the same plant room I think). I can't imagine many women get so excited by being given salvaged building site junk!

I also just rediscovered a jug full of crystal dangly things (removed from a hideous lamp) which my Mum kindly brought me from my late grandparents' house a few months ago, along with some vintage buttons.

I have also had a number of great pound shop finds recently. I'd been looking for something that I could turn into speakers for the alarm system in my technological set for ages, when I came across some fridge magnets with a black wire mesh front. I think the square ones or the round ones will work great with the stylized retro-industrial feel of the set.

I also managed to pick up a huge haul of iridescent semi-transparent glass beads from the pound shop, which I'm sure will come in useful for something. The necklaces are about 4ft long, so that's a heck of a lot of beads! There are so many that I can't get the lid onto the big plastic tub I put them in.

I also made another trip to Fairfield Yarns and got some wool/angora blend 2ply yarn for miniature crocheting in lilac, a burgundy purple colour and dark turquoise. I also got some lovely speckled pure wool DK yarn in blue and dark navy.

Getting the new yarns allowed me to finish off my mini-blanket too. I think I will give it to the samurai puppet that John Hankins made me when I finally get round to doing the animation with it that I've been planning for ages.

Coming soon: The long delayed photos of my completed alien technology set and lots and lots of house-plant props...

Phyllis Pamplemousse

I can now reveal my most recent woolly monster toy, as it is now safely with its new owner Helen Gibbons (aka Shine). Helen is a incredibly talented fibre-artist and was a fellow 'intellectual rebel' when we were at high school together ('intellectual rebel' sounds better than trying to explain the chaos that was TEKAYL... eh Helen!). I made her a monster in exchange for a fantastic pair of hand-knitted socks she made for me, which are currently keeping my feet toasty warm.

Her special monster requests were:

Fierceness

Colours you can see from space

Lots of legs/tentacles

Lots of eyes

The result is the very toothy, seven-legged monster, Phyllis Pamplemousse:

Phyllis is pretty big (I forgot to measure her before I put her in the post, but I'd guess she's about 14" diameter) and her main body is made of crimson acrylic doubleknit yarn crocheted together with bright scarlet mohair to make a thick fuzzy fabric. The rest of her is made of acrylic doubleknit in dark purple, light violet, a golden yellow colour and black. The eye buttons are just a selection of buttons I already had in my button boxes, but finding the perfect buttons for teeth was a bigger challenge!

I knew I needed some big toothy looking toggles for optimum fierceness and set about trying to find some of those shark-tooth shaped toggles that you used to find on duffle coats, only to find that they must be the most out of fashion buttons in the world. After trips to Bury, Chorley and Bolton markets, numerous habedashery shops and lots of internet button suppliers, I could only find some ugly dark grey ones - not toothy at all. In the end, ebay came to my rescue and I found some flat bottomed white toggles that were even more perfect for Phyllis than the shark-tooth ones I had originally imagined!

Here is Phyllis' story:

Smaller and smaller....

Well I've managed it! I can now crochet with a 0.6mm hook (usually used for fine lace-making) and single thread wool yarn (more commonly used for weaving cloth). It's mainly my poor eyesight that makes it tricky, the actual action of crocheting is exactly the same as on a normal scale.

I made a tiny woolly bobble hat! It is about 19mm in diameter (60mm circumference) and 15mm tall (not including bobble). I used double crochet stitch (that's single crochet if you're American) for most of it and treble crochet (double crochet if you are American) to give it a ridged edging. It is 38 stitches around at the widest point. The tip of my (slightly scarred) index finger is in the photos for scale.

Here it is actual size (assuming you are viewing this the same size as I am).

I've worked out that if it is supposed to be an adult sized hat then it is between 1:10 and 1:9 scale. To be honest I think this is as small as I can go - once the stitches get smaller than 1mm square, my eyes can't cope anymore!

Yarn heaven and mini crocheting...

Inspired by Emmyymme's recent miniature knitting exploits (plus the fact that I just treated myself to a full range of 21 crochet hooks ranging from 0.6mm -10mm), I decided to have a go at some miniature crochet. The first thing I made was a mini blanket. I used 2ply woollen yarn and a 1mm crochet hook.

So far it is about 13 cm square (about 5 inches) and I am going to finish it off by edging it in another shade of blue. I'm also going to make a mini 'granny square' patchwork blanket as soon as I get some more 2ply wool in different colours.



Next, I decided to make a miniature crochet monster:



She is 9cm / 3.5 inches tall (not including tufty bits) and her name is Delilah Axolotl (on account of her tufty 'gills' and the fact that axolotls are my new favourite creature after seeing one on QI last night). My usual woolly monster puppets are about 10-14 inches tall, so Delilah is small enough to be a doll for one of them.

I have not tried crocheting with single ply yarn and a 0.6mm hook yet. To be honest I'm not sure whether it's really necessary to go that small for my purposes - I'm never likely to work at 1:12 scale or smaller!

I have also discovered possibly the most amazing discount yarn supplier in the world. For anyone who likes doing any kind of needlecraft or textile work and can feasibly travel to Heywood (near Bury/Bolton in Lancashire, northwest England) - it is essential that you visit this place!
The shop is only open to the public on Fridays 10am - 5pm (other times by arrangement).

http://www.fairfieldyarns.co.uk/

They have an old Co-operative store which has two rooms literally full, from floor to ceiling, of thousands and thousands of part-cones and balls of surplus yarn in every variety imaginable. Wool, cotton, linen, silk, synthetic, metallic, mohair, cashmere, alpaca all in every thickness and colour you could imagine. I'd estimate that most of the cones have 200g-1kg of yarn left on them, and you pay for them by weight. At least half of the yarns are priced as low as 99p/100g!
They have even supplied Cosgrove Hall with yarn for mini-knitting of puppet costumes.

I bought a ball of black and a ball of white acrylic doubleknit (always handy), a cone of turquoise mohair (great for fuzzy monsters), a huge cone of burgundy pure wool doubleknit (or four-ply, it's hard to tell) and some periwinkle blue 2ply and single ply green wool for mini crocheting. The can of 7up is there for scale. I am going back again next Friday to get more colours!

Bleurgh...

I do not operate well in winter, hence my general lack of activity here recently. I should be working on 'Monday to Friday' but due to the season sapping every ounce of my motivation and energy... I'm not. I have mainly been crocheting woolly hats for baby Mya (my fiance Daz's niece) for the fast approaching Christmas-type celebrations, and sleeping.

I am longing for spring and the usual period of manic excitement and hyperactivity it usually brings me, then I'll probably finish 'Monday to Friday' at lightening speed. In fact it was during my spring euphoria last year that I spontaneously decided that I was going to make stop-motion animations (despite knowing nothing about the process) which remarkably seems to have been one of my more successful ideas (much more successful than the farming invisible llamas and building multi-coloured yurts 'inspired idea' of 2006 anyway). Funny how things work out...

Anyway, my applications for funding were turned down, not that I'm surprised. I put in the applications mainly for the experience of putting together a film proposal, knowing that I'd be up against lots of much more experienced animators.

Oh, and the big commission I mentioned in the previous post fell through, but the maketing agency have said they will consider me for future jobs. Still, it is very encouraging to know that a genuine London marketing agency (with clients like MTV) has even seen my work, let alone liked it enough to contact me!

So, er, yeah... rest of winter will be spent working v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y on 'Monday to Friday'.
When that is finished, I have plans to make 'Loose Yarn', the film I applied for the funding for. I will have to make it on a much smaller budget than I would have done with the funding, but it will still be the most ambitious (and expensive!) thing I have ever attempted.

Oh well, roll on spring...

Exciting times....

There hasn't been much time for blog updating over the last few weeks... very very busy.

For a start I've been working on a short film proposal for funding from the 4mations scheme (run by channel 4). Being my usual self, I got a bit carried away trying to get it perfect so I ended up not sleeping a great deal over the last few weeks. Anyway, now it's just a case of wait and see.

On top of that, I may (fingers crossed) have a big commission (about 2 months worth of animating) but I can't really say much more about that at the moment...
'Monday to Friday' (the short I've been working on with the monsters in the factory) may have to be put on hold for quite a while!

These truly are exciting times for me!

Also, if anyone is interested, I have a temporary website up (until I have the time to build a proper one), but it does have a gallery full of my woolly monster artist-toys:

www.ceriwatling.co.uk

You can also see a selection of my woolly creations on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30223082@N04/sets/72157608794258117/