Rabbit lip sync

Okay, i've finally got round to sorting out my blog and getting myself together, so i am going to update on what i've been up to and then will post updates of all projects i will be working on.

So to start with i thought i would put up the work from a project that i really enjoyed working on: Rabbit lip sync.



This film was created when i was in my second year of university (now graduated)
I first started by interviewing people around the Stoke-on-Trent area.
I found a funny fisherman who had a lot to talk about, he was mostly talking about fishing but finally he started to talk about his garden and his vegetables.

When listening back the audio i had recorded, images were conjured up of this big brown rabbit on a vegetable patch.

Here is what i did:


After a lot of concepts for this character (that i have unfortunately now misplaced) i created many different rabbit maquettes

 

 

 

 After this i created a simple garden set using foam board and coloured Fimo.

 

I created a foam board fence and drew on lines with an ink pen

 

I used fake grass from a hobby shop to create the ground and a ball of tin foil covered in orange Fimo to make the pumpkin

 



This was a simple drawing to see if the rabbit puppet would work on film


 

Next it was time to create the rabbit.

I felt that in true Aardman style i would create the rabbit out of Plasticine, this was an esthetical choice as i felt it would look best on my brightly coloured set.

I began by creating a pumpkin that would be secured to the set, i then built the armature of the rabbit from the pumpkin. I did this because the rabbit puppet would not be getting up and walking and would remain on the pumpkin for the duration of the animation.



The eyes and nose were created using Fimo. The eyes were secured into tin foil covered eye sockets and Plasticine was moulded around them to keep them in place.
The eyes had tiny holes in the centres so that they could be moved easily with a pin

I created the rabbit without a mouth as all of the mouths would be replacements

I next created the rabbits replacement mouths:

Rabbit with his A mouth

And here is the finished rabbit puppet:

Then all that was left to do was the animating (my favourite part!) Here are some shots of my set up:

 

 

 

I really enjoyed working on this project, it was really fun and i hope to work on more projects like this in the near future

And that's all I've got to say about my rabbit animation, here is the link to watch the video, please enjoy:

https://vimeo.com/17490055