/IMAGINE with Jen: Ko-Fi Crowd Funding - Help the Series Come to Life!

 

 Hey everyone who has supported our Zombie Pirates project! I have been working on a new project this past year. Why no Zombies? The main issue with my old project here is that I do not have enough space to make the film in our garage. The story followed two ships, the Defiance and the Rusty Cork as Captain Quill was always trying to chase down Captain Leather Beard.

While I think the idea is still a great one, space doesn't allow for multiple ships and destinations across the sea. I think if a company like Aardman ever wanted to help tell more tales, it would be perfect. But of course there's a zero percent chance of that. 

After I had the idea for my new project, I set out to make everything in such a way that I can make many stories in limited space. The main character Jen will live in a small studio home. You can see it in the above video how the outside looks. Then there will be one room on the inside where she works, animating stop motion films of her own.

 The story about Jen is she has a goal to keep the art of stop motion alive, but only has one way to do it. Through the same means we all have, that is to use social media and her equipment. Is it too big of a task? The film series will follow her on her journey of working on films, going on the internet and interacting with some mysterious characters. Some benign and some who have malicious intents to sway her from her goals.

If you'd like to help support the new project, you can do so over on our new Ko-Fi page for it over here. Members will get access to behind the scenes videos and pictures before everyone else. There will also be 3-D prints you can get of the characters too in the store. Thank you for your support!

Re-Release of Zombie Pirates at 60 Frames Per Second!

It's been six years since the release of our experimental film Zombie Pirates. A newer technology using artificial intelligence came out called Flowframes. The program adds in-between frames to any existing animation or video. It doesn't add motion blur so the appearance of a stop motion film doesn't change. I liked the results and decided to upload it. What do you think?

Zombie Pirate Tales Complete!

Zombie Pirate Tales is now complete! I managed to do the simple flying debris shot and floating hearts today. I will have a final video about the film in the coming week.

Last Puppet Shot Completed!!!

It's hard to believe, but I just inserted the final puppet shot that I animated today into the editing timeline. I need to set up the last two animated shots of the hearts and boards flying in the air. I may try to set up the final shots today to animate soon since I won't be doing sculptures for any of my clients for at least a few more days. It is both a good feeling and sad at the same time.

Only One Major Shot Left!

 

I'm in-between jobs for my clients which has given me a little time to work on Zombie Pirate Tales. Another shot was completed so now there is only one 2 1/2 second shot left to do, one wood explosion shot and floating-heart shot. Then I will need to go through each shot and tweak the look and audio.

Since my equipment evolved from a 5MP camera to a 12MP camera and an Animation Toolworks lunch box to Dragonframe - the look of the film has inconsistencies. Some shots seem almost smeared while others are very crisp. That's because the sensors in the cameras I used picked up different levels of pixels and the internal firmware caused the images to appear at slightly different color temperatures.In editing I hope to resolve some of those issues, but there's not really a lot I can do beyond that. The film simply won't be perfect - but I think the experience was well worth it.

For not having a big budget, some shots are on-par with what I hope I attained. The Will Vinton Claymation style that the talented artists like Tony Merrithew, Gary Bialke, Webster Colcord, Chuck Duke, John Ashlee, Mike McKinney and others taught me through teaching and inspiration. Hopefully the film will inspire the next generation of animators who never saw those older films to give clay animation a try.

Shimbus New Expression

A new expression for Shimbu for when the fat woman zomby swings down from above. Shimbu won't move and is just in the background. If I did animate him, I would only move him a little - or possibly have him blink. I don't want any distractions to take away from Ruble who is the main focus.

What Exactly is a Mizzen Rope?

Ruble isn't the brightest character in Zombie Pirate Tales. He learns everything the hard way...but that's what is so great about him. This is another completed shot that I managed to do tonight (actually 3AM this morning) in-between some sculpting jobs for other clients. The quality is probably very low here on Blogger since I didn't upload this on YouTube - and I didn't video it in HD either. You'll have to wait for the release to see it in the highest quality. If the video doesn't play for some of you here's a still frame from the shot.