Anti fur fox film

In 2011 i was part of a team that created an animated video for an anti fur campaign for fur free alliance:

 

My role in the animation was to create a life sized fox puppet and animate it alongside a human all in stop motion.

I was about to create the biggest puppet i had ever created in my life

 

I started off by making a small maquette

 

Polystyrene head with wire, foam board and miliput

 

 

 

Cotton wool and latex body

 

 

I half covered the body in fur and left the other half skinned as the full sized fox would be skinned in the actual film

 

 

When starting the main puppet i first made an armature out of very thick wire and very thin wire

 

The armature was secured with plasticine and cotton wool just like the maquette

 

Pink industrial foam was used for muscles and feet

 

Cotton wool and latex was used to cover the fox's body, it was light weight and bulked out the shape easily

 

The ears and snout was created using wire, foam board and miliput

 

The fox was covered in appropriate fur

 

The tongue was made out of foam latex and the teeth were made out of white miliput

 

Here is the puppet in it's cage in the finished film.

 

The film came first in the competition and i was awarded a certificate and a cash prize for my part in the film.

 

The animating was fun and i got to animate a human too, it was a very interesting experience and it was nice to work on something that may actually make a difference to animals lives.

 

The link for the film can be found here:

 

Anti fur fox film from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

It came from stoke canal!

The video above shows my fake trailer for the film: 'It came from stoke canal'
This was a really fun project to work on as i got to combine live action and stop motion in one short trailer.

I really enjoyed working with the actors on this and even through in a cameo myself.

Still from the trailer

I wanted to give this trailer the same feel, the really over the top plot and exaggerated acting.

I had worked in green screen before, most notably me playing air guitar with a stop motion punk:

Green screen punk and me from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.



The green screening process was relatively simple compared to my kraken film, but it was enjoyable none the less.


The animating side of it was also fun, i got to create a nice big kraken puppet using research from old horror movies.

My kraken puppet

Here are some of my initial tests:

Octopus test 01 from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Untitled from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Octopus scratches head from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Animating the tentacle

The picture above shows the bridge and tentacle on the green screen, it was animated and then the green screen was taken out and the film was placed over the live action footage.

I hope you enjoyed this post, i know i enjoyed making the film.

More soon

Kyle

 

It came from stoke canal complete film trailer from Kyle Bennett on Vimeo.

Animal from the muppets and drum kit

For my mums 50th another present i made for her was the animal and his drum kit statue.

Here is how it went:

I made symbols out of kebab skewers painted silver and cuts of wood

I created the base of the stage using foam board

I painted the stage with black spray paint

I created the parts of the drum kit using many materials including, foam board, wood, paper, spray paint and a glue gun

The lips for the front of the stage were made out of Fimo

Animal was created out of wire, plasticine and bits of felt

 

 

Real bulbs were used for the lights

 

Speakers made from spray painted foam board

 

 

 

The final piece

 

A few pictures from old projects

Basically what it says on the tin.
I found a couple of pictures and thought I'd post them up here, this is my general style of creating characters.

Drunken elephant

Punk rocker for a green screened film

Homeless man

Homeless man in nice place

Mascot entry for an animation club at my university

This is all for today, more soon.

Building Taz sculpture

For my mums 50th birthday I created a Taz figure holding a 50th balloon, here's how i made it:

I started with a basic wire armature based on a picture of Taz
The armature was made of wire and glue and drilled into a piece of wood and secured into place

I then built him up with coloured plasticine getting the shape of the character right before smoothing

I built the character up using pictures i found on the Internet as reference

When i was happy with the figure i then built up scenery around him

 

I used plasticine for the grass and a coloured card sky with cut out clouds

 

The final Taz figure seen above was smoothed out and using a real balloon pulled over a piece of pink foam and glued to the backing card but pushed forwards using cocktail sticks that were punched into the pink foam and glued into place.
A string was then attached and placed into taz's hand.