First armature and animation tests

When I finally received the great news about my spot at Open Workshop I began right away with the plans that I had set up to do. 

While I was waiting for my actual armature to arrive I borrowed another armature from my supervisor. I used it to get a feeling of how to move an armature, just like rig testing in 3D. (See pictures below)

 

With this one I animated a simple silly walk cycle. It was a bit complicated as I did not have any magnets to fasten it to the table or tie downs. Instead I used some sculpy clay underneath its feet.

Still waiting for my armature to arrive I tried to create a little character out of some fabric, small wooden balls and some sculpy clay. I borrowed one of the sets from the bachelor film 'Roommate wanted - Dead or Alive' and started animating some small actions. For this I downloaded a demo version of Dragon Frame because I wanted to be familiar with the software. Sadly with the demo I were only able to animate 50 frames shots. So very short animations. See animations below. I had a lot of fun with it and I wish I could have used the background more, because it's so well made and beautiful. The set was not build for actual stop motion purpose, which meant I couldn't drill holes in it for tie downs, and the floor is too thick to use magnets. However, I managed to pull off a few animations. 

  

At the end of the video I made some simple test with hair animations. I knew I were going to have some sort of hair on the puppet, so I tested how yarn would react and how it was possible for me to pose it during each frame. I managed to do pretty well with it and I liked the result of it.