The last puppet making session

Ian Matthews showed us a sting for E4 that his mate from Calon had made. It’s a very nice ident – incredibly stylish, trendy and has a charm only stop motion could evoke. He brought in one of the puppets on loan from the owner for us to have a look at. The design was relatively simple compared to what we have been making. They were a great example of purpose-built puppets; the models were built to execute a specific performance, the characters only needed to be seen from the waist up - so that's the only section they made, they only wave their arms and bounce a bit, so make them economically so they perform well without the extra effort of building a whole, complete, articulate puppet.

Click on the image to watch the sting on the E4 site

My armature is nearing completion. I managed to catch up quite quickly having been away after spending a day in the workshop. A little more soldering and gluing to go and then I should have a working armature. Ian very kindly gave us a comprehensive guide to building a stop motion puppet – a summing up of his teachings over the last month or so. I think he’s really inspired the group to become more serious about stop motion and get out there and try making some more models. I’m now anticipating the animation section of the training which starts this week.

Whilst on the subject of stop motion and its qualities I also wanted to share the work of Alison Schulnik. A graduate of CalArts, her work really plays on the materiality and performativity of clay in all its richness and tangibility. She has a very identifiable painterly style throughout her plastic arts and motion picture work. Check out her website here.