Believe it or not, my animated short Ins Dunkel (engl. Into the Dark) will be released this year, after almost five years of preparation. Officially. On 2nd June, 2012. In a cinema.

With all the bells and whistles!

How so?

I just made a decision. And set a date.

Today I talked to the people of the Filmhaus Bielefeld. They run a small cinema and I asked them if it's possible to show my film there, and if so, when. – I decided to celebrate of the release of my film project in June, so that I have on the one hand enough time, and on the other hand enough pressure to finish it.

So here's the big announcement!

What I plan for that special night:

• An opening reception
  
• introduction & screening
  
• a making of
  
• an interview with a q&a, and
  
• and a small exhibition with props and puppets from the film.

Mark the day in your calendar, it's official! – I'll keep you updated!

Love,
– Jessica ♥

…and that it is, in every respect.

I shook off my being stuck because of the refurbishment, and went straight into the basement studio in the morning. Altogether I animated 630 frames for my animated short "Ins Dunkel" ("Into the Dark") today, and 159 of those are so bad, that I'll have to reshoot them tomorrow.

Nevermind.

Some of them work pretty well, and today I also almost finished the turning point of my story. This is one of the last moments before the drama finally takes its course:

If I'll have a good run tomorrow as well, I probably will finish the Underworld animation at all. That would be awesome since the paper puppets start to fall apart.

I still hear Bristol based model maker Mary Murphy in my head, "It's not the question if your puppet is going to break, but when."

I don't really know why I'm so amazingly motivated right now. Is it the itfs deadline? Is it the now or never feeling that I sometimes have? I don't know, but I really enjoy the progress. I hope you do as well!

Have an animating week!

– Jessica

Yes, it's me.
It's been a while since I last updated this blog.

Due to some massive refurbishment at our beloved house I wasn't able to work on my film, or on anything at all. Everything has been messy in here, dust is everywhere and the only room that still has its usual function is our bed room. (Though it's slowly getting better…)

We just wanted to exchange a window and the front door. But what was planned as a one-and-a-half-day action, took us one and a half week so far since the walls need a bit more attention than expected, and will probably take another one or two weeks since the most beautiful man alive and I also have some scheduled work to do.

Part of the room formerly known as our kitchen, captured by @einfachkaffee. You can see me in the background, hi there!

Lesson learned: One does not just do a quick change in an old house like ours.

I cannot really concentrate right now. The clean-up phase has begun yesterday and slowly all our stuff finds back into their places. But it's still stressful and exhausting, and will take more time than I was willing to spend on this.

Anyway, I'm not complaining.
The good part is, that we're going to re-arrange our whole space, and that there will be space for a new order in here as well. That's going to be awesome!

But what about Animation?

Before all that chaos started, I taught a few awesome animation workshops with kids and adults. Due to the lack of progress on my own film Ins Dunkel, I'd like to show you something really cool from the kids instead:

The kids in my workshops would usually love to work with plasticine, but this time they all wanted to draw. And they draw! I don't know how many flip books and seconds of drawn animation they produced… (Actually, I do know, but that would sound less dramatic…)

I'd like to share this video with you that is made by 14 years old Benedikt, an outstanding drawing talent:

Benedikt drew three days for four hours each day to make this clip during my animation summer workshop at the Museum MARTa Herford. He planned the story, the timing and everything else. We used simple 80g office paper, 2B pencils and file fasteners as peg bars.
Well done, doesn't he?

What I understand again and again every time I teach an animation class is that you don't need much to produce outstanding animations. This is something you really should keep in mind!

I just read today that the 19th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film calls for entries until 1 December. This is going to make a beautiful deadline for Ins Dunkel, wouldn't it? What do you think?

Have a lovely week!
Love,
Jessica

Due to a lot of paid work I haven't had enough time to animate over the last weeks. And yet I used every spare minute to work on other aspects of my film, especially its name.

I called it Orpheus film project for a long time, because I first had no idea for a proper title, and then I couldn't decide which one I'd like to use.

Finding a suitable title was a long process full of endless piles of lists, huge amount of ideas on whiteboards or in sketchbooks and I don't know what.

Now I had this idea for three days, and I still like it, so herewith I proudly present you the final title for my film:

And here is the version which is translated into English:

The German title is the official film title, the English title is rather a simple translation for when I'm going to apply to international film festivals later.

I also designed a poster layout today, and I'm thinking of printing one of those images as postcards:

There's a larger poster version on my flickr photo stream

The decision for the title was a big relief.

Ins Dunkel | Into the Darkness

According to the ancient Greek tale, Orpheus is trying to bring his beloved Eurydice back from death, and he descends to the Underworld.

Wikipedia says,

The descent to the underworld is a mytheme of comparative mythology found in a diverse number of religions from around the world, up to and including Christianity. The hero or upper-world deity journeys to the underworld or to the land of the dead and returns, often with a quest-object or a loved one, or with heightened knowledge.

(page version from 13 May 2011 at 18:59)

Descending into the dark is the subject that is most interesting to me here. Orpheus is doing this literally in the tale, but also does it metaphorically. He's going into the dark, to face the darkest parts of his soul where fear and grief and loneliness live.

At this point the story becomes archetypical: every human being faces darkness at some point of their life. The question is, how we deal with it.

Have a good week!

Love,
Jessica

This is going to be only a small report on how I'm progressing on my Orpheus film project.

Last week I animated 1289 frames in total which means, I have approx. 1 minute 30 seconds of footage. I also reached the turning point of the Underworld scene, and I hope to finish this part as soon as possible.

Here are some stills from the scenes I shot:

More to come soon!

Since I don't want to reveal too much before the film is finished, I'd like to show you something else to jolly you along:

Cut-Out Animation with Terry Gilliam

If you need a quick introduction to cut-out animation, I highly recommend the following video:

Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam discusses his animation techniques on Bob Godfrey’s Do-It-Yourself Animation Show in 1974. I admire Gilliam's films, and I love his animations. I made a lot of cut-out animations with my kids in previous animation classes, but I learned here something new, too.

Next weekend I'm going to teach an animation workshop to adults, and I think I'm going to use these technique again since it's so simply and having this stunning results at the same time.

Cheers,
Jessica

Since I started animating last week, I animated 1081 frames. – So I already have approx. one-tenth of my Orpheus film finished right now.

During my last shooting session I did a really crappy walk cycle, and I really wanted to change that. I had another look in one of my favorite animation books, The Animator's Survival Kit (a must-have for animators, I suppose).

I studied the concept of the walks again, and finally managed to achieve a kind of walk that I like:

The walk is just a small part of the nearly 300 frames I shot today, but I also don't want to reveal too much.

I have to do some more clean-up work on this sequence, due to stupid technical issues and the hence resulting light flickering. I'll do that tomorrow, I'm too tired right now.

Today's pro tip #1:

Never work tired on your animations or editing. Things get worse, believe me.

Today's pro tip #2:

Always copy your original fils before you start editing/photoshopping or whatever.

Actually I am so happy with the animations. Everything is coming together in a lovely way, and I'm astonished how quick the animation progress bar grows.

Sleep tight!

Yours in animating,
Jessica

Is it really Wednesday already?
I got so used to update my blog on Mondays, that it just feels wrong to write a post tonight. On the one hand. On the other I finally have exciting news to share:

I started animating!

This is the scene I shot today for my Orpheus film project, within approximately five hours. I animated 410 frames, most of them (though not all) on twos:

Setup

I shot the animation with my Pentax ist *DL2, an Eye-Fi card and Dragon Stopmotion which works but isn't an ideal setup. I had several technical issues over the last two days which are now all solved. I was highly motivated on Monday to start animating but then everything just doesn't want to work for two days.

Now it does, and I am working, too.
Oh, and I used my gorgeous panning tool!

Insights

When I eventually started animating, I instantly remembered what I've had to do. Some Bristol nostalgia occurred because it was pretty much like back in the Three Month Animation Course: My brain, my hands and my body knew exactly what to do.

(Simon, where are you?)

I am not 100% satisfied with the animation, because I'm still not good with walks. But I can live with it. And there are parts that I like pretty much, e. g. when Orpheus is playing the Lyre or when the boat hits the dock.

To me it's more important to animate at all. Today I saw that every tiny movement is another learning experience, and I am optimistic and hope that eventually everything fits together perfectly.

I am tired but happy.
Have a good night, you!

Love,
Jessica

It's the last weeks before the summer holidays, and there are so many things that want to be finished this week. I have less time to work on my Orpheus film, and this annoys me pretty much. I really want to start the animation now, but I suppose this have to wait another week.

Plus: my equipment has worked fine over the last few months, but when I wanted to use it today, nothing worked. Grr.

Nevermind.
After last week's shaky panning attempt I started another approach to build a panning slide, this time with less gaffer tape and less cable straps, too. Robert Lyons (I met him at vimeo.com) recommended to get

[…] some drawer slide at a hardware store, sandwich them between two pieces of wood and mount the camera to the upper board. Ive used this method as a cheap but smooth and incrementable camera mover for stop motion,

he said.
And this was a damn good suggestion.

My new slider looks like this:

I screwed the drawer slide onto a rectangular block of wood, and attached another board on top. I created a small support on the board to fasten the top of a tripod on it (to hold the camera in place). The drawer slide creates a smooth movement and I don't need much force to move it just a bit. – Awesome!

This is how it works:

And here I tried another test sliding animation:

It looks so much better now, and is much easier to handle.
Success!

– Have a successful week yourself, and thank you so much for sharing your ideas! All the best,

Jessica

Film still from the Underworld.

Often I have a certain idea for an animation, but I don't think too much how it could be done at first. It was the same with some of the scenes for my Orpheus film project: I want to do some fancy camera movements for my oncoming animated short, but I don't own a professional equipment to create those movements easily.

So I just built an animation panning device from my old-school animation stand, a miter-box, a lot of gaffer tape and also a lot of cable straps today. (Everything is held in place by loads of gaffer tape and cable straps.)

It looks crappy, but it works:

The "back-bone" of the animation stand serves as a guide for the cameras. It has scales printed on its surface which make it easy to animate fluidly. Both cameras are taped to a miter-box that is used as a slide. Altogether it's a bit shaky, but I can control the animation through the life feed within the software.

My highly professional panning in animation setup. There's a larger version of this image on my flickr photostream.
– Highly professional, as I said!

I use two cameras here: I take the high res pictures with my digital DSLR, a Pentax ist DL2 which (sadly) hasn't a video life feed. To control the movements and to rearrange things (if necessary), I use my Panasonic NV GS-90, a simply digital camcorder that is connected to the computer.

Okay, I admit: It's not a bit professional. It's all pretty semi-professional, probably.

Whatever professional means…

I think, it is okay so far because it's working, but perhaps you have another low-budget idea?
Thanks for sharing!

– Jessica

Today I tested varying light and camera setups for my Orpheus film project. I learned that I still need some spots, and that I have to buy a few more different light bulbs to achieve certain moods. I think I have to do some more test shots before I eventually begin animating, but that's fine.

Here are some images I created today, with the puppets set in scene:

Orpheus at the Cemetery.

Charon standing in his Cave.

I also stripped down my old-school animation stand to use it as a camera support. I'm going to use its movable parts because I can track, pan or tilt the camera with its help easily. (Don't worry, it's easily to be re-assembled!)

Despite working on all the technical issues, I finished the very last props:

300 blank dope sheets.

Oh, I also went to the local copy shop today to get 300 copies of my dope sheet.

You can download the dope sheet pdf if you like (approx. 500KB). I tried several dope sheets created by other animators over the years, and whenever something worked well, I added it to my own version. Feel free to use and spread it!

Yesterday I did a rough calculation on how long the film is supposed to be by using a stopwatch. I assumed it's going to run for about ten minutes, or 15.000 frames. Seeing the figures, I got a bit discouraged, even though that changed quickly, thanks to my dear friend Simon.

We had a small chat on twitter, and he said:

Wise words indeed!
I loved that so much that I created this little illustration, and pinned it to my studio wall. – Awesome! (Feel free to download the image as well!)

Still, I'm very excited of what's going to happen next. I think I'll start with the silhouette animation since it's less complicated. And then I'll work my way through the whole animation. Ha!

Have a good week!
– Jessica

Due to a screen printing workshop that I attended on Monday, I didn't get much done on my beloved Studio Monday. So I caught up yesterday and today with making (and finishing!) the Charon puppet for my Orpheus film project:

From time to time I do these studio marathons. Today I worked for more than nine hours on the puppet. And since I'm too tired now to write a full report, I'll just share today's log and some pictures with you:

Today's Log

10:03
The mold has been prepared yesterday for casting the foam model, and I just poured the foam into the mold, and now I'm nervous and excited. – As always when I'm at this point of model making.

10:25
The foam has cured and the model came of the mold nearly perfectly. Hooray!

10:59
After I cut off all excess material, I started latex mâché-ing the puppet.

11:18 I dyed some more sheets of paper.

11:40
While paper is drying, I have a coffee break.

11:52
At the time I'm drinking coffee, I had some more ideas for the film title but still, no breakthrough.

12:38
I prepared Charon's hair and the lower end of his tailcoat.

14:11
I'm still working on the latex mâché. Finished trousers. Lunch!

16:45
Interrupting of latex mâché-ing for another cup of coffee.

17:29
Just finished his jacket, made him smokey eyes and started painting his eyeballs (I hate painting eyeballs!).

18:01
All the single elements are done and ready to assemble. Finally I added a layer of liquid latex to the whole puppet.

18:42
Done. As in "puppet making equals 100%"! I Clean up the whole workspace. Cannot believe it.

19:15
I cleaned all studio tables from mold-making traces. Realized that I'm done with model making intellectually, but not emotionally.

19:22
Making Charon's helm.

19:40
Dinner.

20:12
Taking pictures of the puppet in the boat.

20:29
Writing blog post.

21:31
Hit the publish! button and fall into my bed.

Finishing the puppet means, that I'm done with preproduction (except from a few minor things). It means that I am ready to animate. This is awesome and weird after all this time. My brain need to digest this fact first.

Still, this is a rather short report. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

All the best and good night!
– Jessica

Getting up early every morning and working on my not-yet-paid projects really pushes them forward.

Today I finished the plasticine model of Charon, the second also-non-silhouette character for my film:

See my flicker photostream for a larger version of this picture.

I sculpted the model's whole body from plasticine except for the hands. They're made of a dozen layers of liquid latex to keep them slim and tiny.

Next I'm going to build the mold to eventually cast the puppet and bring the puppet making process to an end as soon as possible.

What a week.

There were so many other things to do that it was rather difficult to find time slots for working on the Orpheus puppet for my current film project. And whenever I've found the time, something just screwed up. Whatever I tried, there has always been something very wrong with it.

To make a long and annoying story short, here are the outcome:

I experimented a lot with the latex mâché, but I didn't got the results I wanted. Eventually I decided to cast a foam model and cover this with latex mâché and dyed paper. (This was just after I nearly broke the mold again…)

The paper starts to peel of on the bending parts of the puppet (like the elbows, for example), so I gave him a thin liquid latex finish which is why he looks a bit glossy. I'm thinking about achieve a more matte look by using baby powder or so, but I'm not sure about this yet.

Actually I like the glossy look because it makes the character stand out in the papery world he's inhibiting. I also like how he looks great on camera. Even though he has a rough surface, the overall impression is nice.

I didn't photographed him in the sets so far, but I did a small Photoshop collage to get you an idea:

This is the 2010 concept drawing, or rather collage of how the final puppet was supposed to look like.

Puppet making went up to 98%, and I really hope that the next one will be finished a bit quicker than the last one.

Oh, and this was just my 150th blog post. Back then, in January 2008, I posted somewhat like an Orpheus trailer…

During the last week I worked on the mold for the Orpheus puppet, but when I triedd to open the mold, it broke. I had to remake it completely. In order not to bore you with picture very similar to those from last Monday, I'll share some completely different thoughts with you:

…you promised! | mixed media on paper | ca. 84 x 46 cm | 2011

Why am I doing this?

When I'm motivated to do something, I have no issues to start, to continue and to finish a project. When I'm disciplined, I somehow understand the necessity to start, to continue and to finish a project, but that doesn't mean neither that I like what I'm doing nor that I'll eventually do it.

Motivation doesn't come easily. Most of the time it will be easier to be disciplined and to follow a path that others or yourself may expect from you. – It's really hard work to find out what motivates you. But it's worth trying.

There's a simple question:

The answer though is often difficult. But the more I understand my motives, the easier it is to become motivated.

I was thinking about motivation and discipline a lot the last weeks because I try to understand why it's so easy to work on my Orpheus film project currently, or why I suddenly keep working in the studio in general. I had in my guts that it wasn't discipline that helps me to do the work.

(Oh, and I really tried to be disciplined. I tried working an hour a day on my film for several weeks. I tried to build some external pressure, but that doesn't work either. I tried so many things that I can't even remember them.)

I wondered, "What does motivate me now?" How do I stay on track with my film even when I have to overcome obstacles and difficulties like yesterday, when my mold broke and I lost a whole week's work?

Why do I want to make the Orpheus film at all?

On the one hand, it's the story that appeals me: that metaphorical story about descending into the dark to face death, both literally and symbolically. On the other hand I love storytelling through animation. I love handmade animation. And I have the feeling that I have something unique to say.

It's not about other people. I would make the film in case nobody is going to like it. I've been working on this film for years even though I had monetary or technical or other issues, and I just don't want to give it up because making this film is so amazingly important to me.

I want to finish this film because I want to see if I am able to do this. To work as an animator artist, to earn some money from the things I do and to do it independently (as in freelancer). I want to see if I'm able to live a life with as few compromises (concerning my work) and with as much freedom possible. I'm proving my theory about life.

If I fail, I'll fail. But at least I tried.

– See, this is a motivation. I don't need discipline anymore.

What about you? What motivates you?

steadily
the work
evolves and grows
the artist is(n't) amazed
– progress.

While it was quite hot outside, I hid in my chilled basement studio to work on the puppets for my Orpheus film project.

I finished the first half of the Orpheus puppet's mold today. When the plaster was setting, I made the armature of Charon, the second character who – like Orpheus – appears both, as a puppet and as a silhouette.

No fancy pictures today.
Just simple shots of what I did today:

This is the first half of the Oprheus puppet's mold. It's still drying, and I'm going to cast the second part in two or three days.

The final armature for the Charon character (or see a bigger version of this image)

At first I thought, "Well, there's nothing in this post that is for or helps my dear readers". But still, it is: I'd like to share these pictures because they show how important it is to keep the things going.

When I started my Studio Monday, I wanted to create time and space (and a routine) for the work on my film, so that it will be eventually completed one day. And that has worked amazingly well so far: Every week I accomplish a lot of things.

As soon as one Studio Monday is over, I want to find as much time as possible to take the things further, because it's simply so much fun, and I'm motivated to go on. This is not about discipline right now. It's just, you know, the process is simply pleasing.

(I've written about this feeling before.)

Do you know this feeling? I really wish you do!

Here's a quick update on my Orpheus puppet since I finished the head and the hands yesterday:

Orpheus' head and hands.
(See this image in higher resolution on my flickr stream.)

My process here is pretty much the same to making puppets from cold foam. Before I pour the foam into the mold, I cover the form with latex mâché. Latex mâché was invented by my dear fellow Shelley Noble, and it's very similar to paper mâché:

First, I cover the inside of the mold with one or two layers of liquid latex. Next, I add little snippets of very thin dyed paper and glue them down with another layer of latex. If all is covered and has dried, I'll place the armature into the mold and fill the gaps with cold foam.

Once the foam is cured, I take the cast out of the mold and hide the seams under another layer of paper and latex. The head measures approx. 3,5 cm from crown to chin.

See the paper structure under the hand's skin.

My intention is to get everything at least a bit paper-like. The latex mâché method is a good way to combine a papery look with a flexible puppet, even though it's quite laborious: Covering the mold with paper and latex from the inside took me about two hours.

It took me three attempts to get everything right, and I haven't taken any photos of the process so far. When I'll make Orpheus' body mold and cast next, I'm going to take some for illustration for you.

The picture on this post's top reminds me of an Orpheus portrait by Jean Delville, a Belgian symbolist painter who completed this painting in 1893. – A coincidence?

The final Orpheus model made of plasticine, with all single parts assembled: hands and head are attached to the body part here.

Today's Studio Monday guest had to call off, and so I had a whole day to sculpt the Orpheus model of plasticine. I finished the body and the head today, but had issues with the hands. I wasn't quite sure how to make them, since they have to be easily replaced once they're broken, and because they're tiny!

I tried JONS's GAP/FILL/DIP method for the hands, but neither do I achieve it as clean as he usually does ​​yet, nor exactly the way I wanted to. We'll see how the hands (tiny hands indeed!) are going to look once they've been casted.

(I'm trying to forget about perfectionism right now which is not an easy task.)

The final Orpheus model: foot and head close up.

The final Orpheus model: hands.

Right now the first half of the mold for Orpheus' head and hands is settling, and I'm going to cast the second half of the mold from plaster tomorrow. Once the mold is finished, I'm going to try to apply the latex paper mache technique developed by Shelley Noble.

Needless to say, that if this is going to work, I'll share my method with you!

Fun Fact: Actually the Orpheus design finally became a more mature character, even though I intended him to appear a bit more boyish. When I wrote the first drafts of this short, I was 26. Today I'm almost 30 and a lot of things has changed since then. So does Orpheus, I guess.

See a larger version of this picture on flickr.com

After yesterday's animation experiments, day I made the armature of the Orpheus puppet today. I used aluminum wire for the main skeleton, and white Milliput for the bones.

Some parts of the armature (the head and the hands) are replaceable, those will be attached through square K&S brass tubes. I've written an e-book about my model making for animation process last year, in case you'd like to learn more about my process.

Right now I'm tinkering with the puppet's tiny hands. On the one hand I want to give JON's (aka gluegunslinger) GAP/FILL/DIP method a try, but since I need a rather seamless transition from the hand to the arm, I'm also thinking of modeling it from plasticine and casting it of cold foam…

Next steps on this puppet:

• solving the hand's problem
  
• sculpting the model
  
• casting the mold
  
• casting the puppet, and finally
  
• completing the puppet with a clean-up.

Today I did a very quick shot to test my hardware/software setup. You can see that I shot it in daylight which is why the light is flickering so much. – But since this was just a general tryout I think it's okay for now.

The background and the clouds are cut out of paper, the structures and textures are all handmade. For this film I try to build as much from paper as possible, and so most of the cemetery setting is made of paper, too. I shot the cloud's animation under my old-school animation stand with my Pentax *ist DL2 and Dragon Stopmotion software.

Since I've finished the sets, I had issues to move on with the puppets and with testing the technical stuff. Today I just want to do anything and so I started this quick animation setup. When I'll start shooting the animation, everything will be arranged a bit more accurately (as I 've learned in Bristol…)

The day before yesterday I reached another milestone on my Orpheus film project: I completed the last set.
All sets are built and finished now.
Which means: I've completed another 100% on my progress bars!

Hooray! This is so amazing and exciting!

Sets at 100% on 10 May, 2011

The Final Sets

The Cemetery (photographed by Leo Nesemann)

Orpheus' House

The Cave/The Entry to the Underworld

The Underworld

The Sets: Facts & Figures

There are four sets with a total size of about 5,50 sqm. The largest one is the Cemetery which expands over 2 x 1,5 m, but the Entry to the Underworld is the tallest set with a height of 90 cm.

It took me 64 weeks or 14 months to complete the sets including research, design and making them. I collected about 420 images as references in my mood boards to develop an impression for the final look and feel of the film. I haven't worked full-time on the sets, so I'd guess it's been approx. 6 hours per week on average. – I'd say it's about 380 hours in total. Every single item is hand-made, so it certainly took some time.

For the most part all the sets were built from corrugated cardboard, foam board, paper and wire. I used colored pencil, acrylics, watercolors, drawing ink and pastels to paint the single elements.

What's Next?

Yesterday I decluttered the studio from all building materials, and did a complete clean-up there, so the set building process is completed in all respects. Next, I have to build the remaining puppets, and then I'll start animating eventually!

The silhouette set is done.

The last two days I spent in my basement studio (which is kind of my personal Underworld) and worked on the silhouette set of the realm of the dead.

The Underworld set is approx. 2 m long.

Here are some pictures I shot of the set (in which I increased the contrast a bit):

Hades and Orpheus reaching the shore.

Cerberus guarding the way to the throne room.

Orpheus entering the throne room.

Orpheus meeting Hades.

I'll do the final recording with a slight back light against a colored background to achieve high contrasts and sharp outlines.

The Black Gate

... is, in contrast to all the other parts, made of aluminium wire which I have tied together with black thread.

Finally, I sprayed the door with black spray paint so it'll turn into a silhouette as well.

Right now I'm painting the background and then I'm done with set building... As in done. Who would have guessed that this is going to happen one day?

Yay for another successful Studio Monday! Since I'd been stuck for the last three weeks or so, I decided that something had to change today. It does, and it was a tough and challenging task. I also had no visitors, so I set to work alone.

I wanted to move on with the sets for my Orpheus film project, but it felt like running against a wall.

I kept going though. After I made the first element, the throne of Hades, I got stuck again. I had this very clear vision of how the set was going to look like, but every little step was annoying and stressful, and often it took me several attempts to get the shapes right.

Whenever something went wrong, I was about to stop. But I kept going for three long and disappointing hours until something changed. I don't know exactly what it was, but eventually I made it into the Zone. I continued to work for three more hours and suddenly a large part of the set was built.

Normally, I would recommend to do something completely different when one is stuck. But in this case I have done something different for weeks, and I really wanted to move on with the set building. Surprisingly, it worked.

This is the main view into the throne room with Orpheus and Hades.

The underworld where Hades is the king of the dead is a world of shadows, and that's why this part of the film is completely made of silhouettes. It's a small set: Imagine another landing, and the Throne Room which is guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed hound.

Today I already finished the interior design of the throne room, some parts of the cave and the landing. Most of the elements are made of corrugated cardboard that I've painted black with acrylics. I used lamp black which is the deepest black available. (Actually it was my main work to paint things black today. You should have seen my hands…)

This is Hades sitting on his yet unpainted throne made of cardboard.

There are only a few things I still have to do before finishing the set: making a door for the throne room from wire and black spray paint and adding more cave elements and a background. Oh, and I need a silhouette boat as well. There isn't much left now what I have to do yet for the sets. But unfortunately I set the progress bar to 97% on set building, so 3% percent are left. Let's see if this is an unbreakable rule…

Today I also designed the gate through which the characters enter the hall.

I really hope to finish this set soon.

Literally. And practically. I have this day called Studio Monday that is a kind of weekly open studio day. You're more than welcome to join me on my creative adventures: either your bring your own projects to work on or you could support me by giving me a hand on mine. If you just want to peek into my studio, that would be fine as well. – It's all about sharing!

It's part of the concept of Studio Monday, that I'll have plenty of time to work on my Orpheus film project, if nobody comes around. Today I finished the Cave set that is the entry to the Underworld where young Orpheus is searching for his beloved but dead Eurydice to eventually bring her back to life.

The last missing part had been the water of the River Styx. And today I built the waves, and did a small test animation of this rather classical water solution:

The waves are made from cardboard again, and painted with acrylics. To make them stand upright I use plasticine. Since I'm going to move the water during the scene, I needed a supportive but flexible material. The plasticine works nicely.

I then made use of the shadow puppets of the project to do some camera angle test shots, and created a small animatic of the scene. I roughly timed the single shots, and learned that this part of the film is going to take about a minute, perhaps a tiny bit longer.

The remaining set is the deepest part of the Underworld, ruled by Hades. This set consist of a landing for the ferryman's boat, the place where Cherberus keeps watch, and the throne room where Orpheus is meeting the King of the Dead. This set will be completely made of silhouettes, and I hope to finish it within the next two weeks.

The set building progress bar rose to 91%, and I'm getting more excited (and even more nervous) every week. This project has been unfinished for so long, it feels strange to believe that it's possible to simply finish it. And right now there's only one set to build, and two puppets to make before I'll finally start animating. This is unbelievable…

Today was the first Studio Monday without visitors, but even though I made the best of it.

The next top on my To Do list for my Orpheus film project was to build the boat of Charon the ferryman. (That alone took me about six hours today.) As always I started with the basic shape made of strong cardboard and hot glue:

A few months ago I mad a small lantern of paper which is lit by a small Ballon LED. These are battery operated little LED lamps spending their light independently from other power connections. The lantern is supposed to hang at the ship's bow and leads the ferryman through the dark.

But before I finally assembled everything, I covered the boat in paper mâché and colored with several layers of acrylics, color pencil and pastel dust.

The picture on top shows the final piece placed into the cave set.

Background Animation Test

Inspired by a video I saw yesterday, I made a 10 cm small cut-out character of transparent film covered roughly with black acrylics. The joints are made of knotted fishing wire. – Don't ask, it was painstaking.

I want to animate a few dead souls on the background of the set, and I found a pretty beautiful solution for this: An overhead projector throws an image of rough rocks on a painted backdrop, and I use this black/transparent cut-out puppet for an animation on top of the projector. So there'll be the fixed image of a cave to see, and the shadow animation on top of it. Like this:

And with a satisfied grin on my face I change the numbers of my progress bars… Right now, I'm just working the things off my list. I'm really looking forward to the animation, but I guess I have to train a bit. It was a bit rough today. But even though I am really happy with the visual results…

Funny note: I used the same sequence three times, and at the end of every sequence you can see the battery of the LED fading. – This was not by purpose…

– Supplemental

This was a rather dry report on how I made the boat. Now it's going to be emotional:

Do you know this certain state of mind when you're not really awake in the morning, but yet not sleeping anymore either? Today, in that situation, came a question to my mind: What if the set doesn't fit the needs of my story? What if the camera angels I established in the storyboard doesn't work? What if I just built it all wrong?

Do you know these panic moments? I'm a kind of control freak when it comes to things like this, and I seldom make major mistakes in such a project. But what if…?

To avoid further panicking, I just went down to the basement studio to take some control shots with a snapshot camera, and yes, it seems that everything seems to work nicely. Tf, tf, tf!

The second Studio Monday went by, and it was a great day again. – It's simply amazing to have several hours in a row to work on stuff like my Orpheus film project, and it's great to have some creative companionship, too.

Today's visitor was my friend Leo who is a mathematician but who also is a very good photographer. He shot various pictures of my studio, of my so far finished sets, and of me working on the cave setting that is the entry to the Underworld. All the photos of this post are shot by Leo, who has been a great help regarding a lot of technical questions today.

We also tested some lighting setups in front of the camera, and added the background for the cave scene. Here some of his test shots:

Leo helped me to set up the lighting and did some test shots of the atmosphere. – The second one is my absolute favorite!

I thought it would be nice to have some souls of the dead flying through the back of the cave while Orpheus is entering the Underworld. I already had a few ideas on how to do it, but all of them seemed rather complicated. While I thought about how to lit the setting to achieve a nice impression of depth, I had this idea of animating the shadows on the background.

Since I own several useful but often unused items, I removed the dust from my overhead projector. I first painted a background on which I wanted to project the animation:

The plain background: I thought it would be nice to project the animation at a noisy background for that it doesn't look too clean.

This is a small impression of how we achieved the special atmosphere in the pictures above.

Then I printed the structures of rocks to a sheet of overhead transparency, and projected this image to the painted backdrop. Next, I placed one of my shadow puppets on top of it to see how it looks. – And it looks amazing! Actually I'm really pleased with the setting and the atmosphere right now.

I also added the landing for the boat of Charon the ferryman today, and some more background pieces to achieve a nice transition from the 3D world to the land of the silhouettes.

Two pictures of me working on the landing.

The landing.

The current state of the cave setting. It only lacks a few details: the ferryman's boat, the water and some background elements.

Now it feels a bit more realistic again that I'll someday soon will finish this animated short…

Photoshop sketch of what the final set may look like.

The first Studio Monday was a huge success.
My initial idea was to create time and space to join creative forces, and it seems that this works perfectly. On Monday I had two guests, one of them wanted to test some materials for illustrating a children's book, and the other one wanted to do an animation. We finished around 11 p.m. – tired but satisfied.

Even though I helped the others to get started and during their process, I had enough time to work on the cave setting. This is one of four sets I'll need for my Orpheus film project, and it's the last set that I have to build in 3D (the Underworld itself is going to be made of silhouette shapes).

I built the walls from cardboard and foam board, both some of my favorite materials. I then modeled the rocks from paper, and covered them with paper mâché. I completed those steps on Monday evening, and coated everything in thin layer of translucent white acrylics.

Adding Colors

Next I started to paint the set, and I'd like to show you how I developed the floor (I use the same technique in some of my drawings as well), and this is maybe something really jessica-esque:

After the first thin layer of white acrylics I drew several spirals with colored pencils to the ground. I used different colors and tried to achieve a dense structure.

My color scheme for the cave is turquoise, violet, grey and black. I used a lot of violet pencils for the spirals, and next I added a thin layer of cyan colored watercolors.

To reduce the intensity of the colors again, I covered the floor in another thins layer of white acrylics.

While the floor wass drying, I dyed the rocks and part of the background with violet watercolors.

Back to the floor: this time another layer of spirals, but here I drew the spirals with copic markers, since those are really bright colored, and won't be covered perfectly by other colors.

In step 6 I added outlines and dust of pastels to the background to get some more depth.

Finally I added some more outlines, graphical shadows and the black and white tiling with deep black ink.

Painting the set took me about four hours. – I like this way of layering different types of materials, because it creates a dense atmosphere, which is what I'm often after. The cave setting is a bit more flashy than the cemetery or the house since this location is the transit zone between the land of living and the land of the dead.

This set still misses a few details yet:

• the landing
• the boat of Charon the ferryman
• the River Styx and
• the background that can be seen through the apertures.

I really want to finish the set this until the end of march, but I guess this could be possible if I'l be able to keep my current pace and motivation.

Wish me luck or join me next Moday!

My Studio Monday will start two weeks from now and I thought it would be nice to do a dry run today. I cleaned up the studio, and started working on my Orpheus film project. Who would have guessed?

I spent the whole afternoon in the basement and worked on a set, the entry cave to the underworld. I've got two kind of sets, the "real world" stages, where everything is three-dimensional, and the Underworld also known as The Land of the Death, that will be silhouette-like. The cave is one of the real world stages, and according to that I design it similar to Orpheus' house or the cemetery.

Today I first ripped off some of the old prop pieces. I've already worked on this set in December but then I got stuck somewhere in the process. – I found it helpful to start again from scratch, though I re-used some of the old parts as well. I painted the ground plate with a first layer of acrylics, and did the same with the surrounding cave walls. I chose the colors close to those I've collected on the initial mood board.

Next I glued the walls to the floor, and added the stairs I made a few weeks ago. At this point it already looked like a set… But because every cave in my inner-head library has huge rocks close to its walls, I also modeled some rocks from paper: I crumpled the paper up and wrapped it with masking tape. I placed the stones into the scenery, and hot-glued them down. Finally I began covering them all with a layer of paper mâché.

The first rock is drying while I'm writing this, and I look forward to continue. Up to now it went much better than I thought, and I feel relieved and happy. Ha!

I still have some problems to solve: I need an idea for the water of the River Styx which should be made of paper and be also animatable. At least it should look like paper. I don't have a clue right now, but perhaps you might have a suggestion? I love to read your ideas in the comments!

Drawing "Companions", sketched with Harmony drawing tool

My dear friend Shelley had that great idea that I'm going to steel and modify: every Friday she invites creative people she met into her studio to join her working on her Halfland project. Which is awesomely inspiring! (I mean both, the project itself and having creative people of all kind around supporting what she does.)

For the last months I was so stuck into paid work that I hadn't the energy to work on my Orpheus film project at all which first made me feel angry, and then very sad. I was thinking a lot about ways to move on with the film in a gentle and guilt-free manner.

My major problem is feeling guilty for not working on the film. I guess whenever a person uses the words procrastination, she feels guilty because she does something else than she was supposed to do. Take me as an example: Whatever I do, I feel guilty because I don't work on the film (even if I work on something creative though). For whatever reason there is a voice in my head that asks reproachfully, "Shouldn't you be working on your film? Perhaps you're not an animation artist at all..." And I kept thinking that procrastinating is bad.

During the last months things has changed. I don't think that procrastination is bad anymore. – I now don't use the word at all. I'll only tell what I actually do, and not what I didn't.

The point is, I really want to finish the film (ideally this year), but I want to do it my way. And I want to find a way to make this possible. First I need time and energy to work in the studio, so I quit a few jobs and commitments, and that was an awesome first step. Second I need some kind of framework.

And so I picked one day of the week as my special Orpheus day. A whole day that is dedicated to film making and animation. From March 7, 2011 on I'll have Studio Mondays.

Studio Monday

From then on I'll open my art and animation studios every Monday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for you to join me on my creative adventures. That means you can come in and simply watch my progress, that you could help if you want, or that you you can bring in your own project (whatever it is) if you need some creative companionship, too.

It's free, and I'll even share my materials, resources and knowledge with you. (That also means that I don't have any excuse to leave the studio at all, because you may come around.)

My studio's address is Kaanstr. 7, 32457 Porta Westfalica. (Ask google Maps for help). In case you have a longer distance to travel, I recommend to call in first: +49 (0) 571 38 76 781. – I'm looking forward to see you!

It doesn't matter how tired I am: I simply love to teach. For me, teaching means encouraging people to find their own voice in whatever artistic medium they choose. Interestingly, and to my great joy this works quite well with most of my students.

Yesterday I was wondering why I'm able to encourage my students, and how they always let me encourage them, but at the same time I'm not following my own teachings myself. My students trust me as a teacher, and they really want to learn something about making art. Even though I graduated in 2009, I'm still a student somehow: I'm still (and probably will always be) learning about art and animation.

I've been struggling with my stuckness for weeks, but yesterday I had an Eureka! moment in which I started to talk to myself like I'd talk to my students if they need help during my classes. I asked myself, if it's working for my students, why shouldn't it work for me as well? (And yes, I am talking to myself, constantly. You definitely should try that, but make sure that you're the only person listening...)

Talking To Teacher Me

"Need help?"

The internal dialogue was like this:

Me: Hey Teacher Me, can I ask you a question or two?

Teacher Me: Of course, what's the problem?

Me: I have this idea of how my piece should look like, and I really don't know how to turn this into reality, I'm afraid that I won't be able to design the puppets and the remaining sets as I have them in my head. And I'm totally afraid that my piece of art (aka the Orpheus film project) isn't going to be gorgeous and nobody would come and watch is.

TM: The first one is a technical problem, isn't it? Do you need more research about the materials you use?

Me: Yeah, I think so. I like the idea of puppets made of paper, but I do favor to animate a puppet made of cold foam. But I have no idea how I achieve that the cold foam looks like paper.

TM: What if you do a test run with a small amount of these materials first? Remember when we draw something, and you aren't sure how it's going to look like. You test it on a piece of scrap paper first, and if it works you'l place it into your main drawing.

Me: So you mean doing some kind of rough sketch with the materials?

TM: Exactly! And if it doesn't work you could ask the kind folks at stopmotionanimation.com for help as well.

Me: Sounds good to me! Working with foam puppets would be great, and I'm now having some more ideas of how to solve the cold foam looking like paper problem. I could cover the original model with a thin layer of paper before I cast the mold from it. If I use plasticine for the model, the final puppet cast will appear a bit like plasticine. Perhaps this is also going to work for a paper surface... Thank you!

TM: And what about your fear that it may not be good or interesting at all? Is it getting better?

Me: A little bit. But I still feel this certain pressure in my belly... Somehow I think I need more time to work on my film – not in the long run but right now.

TM: Yes, I totally understand you! You work as hard as you can at the moment, and there's a lot of other stuff in your life going on. You're absolutely allowed not to work on your film during the next week. After Christmas, you'll have two free weeks, and up to that time you simply move on with what you already do: decluttering your (work) spaces, cleaning up, and being good to yourself as in curing your sleep deprivation by resting and napping a lot. What do you think?

Me: That sounds lovely. Thank you!

You'll get the idea.
Why I am telling you this wacky-me stuff? Because dialogues like the one above help me solving my problems. I often struggle, and sometimes it's so hard to move on with what I love to do, even though (or just because?) I love it so much. Hopefully this may help you as well if you suffer from the same issues, hopefully you'll learn from my experiences...

In the first half of 2010, I had a good run with my Orpheus film project, but then I got stuck. I got angry with myself, I cried, and I felt ashamed and like dirt because I stopped working on the film. After finishing two wonderful sets and several lovely puppets, I wasn't able to work on the film any more, and I didn't find out why. – At the same time I desperately wanted to move on with the production.

Which set up a lot of (internal) pressure: I want(ed) to

• create an inspiring and outstanding artwork in animation
• please my (future) audience
• earn a living from my craft
• proof my way of living as non-irrational and doable, and
• impress you, my reader, with constant updates on my progress.

That's quite a lot. Instead, I didn't do anything at all.

And I'm still a bit helpless. In addition, I had a lot of paid work over the last months which made it even worse. I had the feeling that I was spending most of my creative energy at my school job, and I've been so tired all the time. Those feelings only change slowly. But they do while I'm asking myself every day: "What do I really want? Do I really want this that way?"

I quit my job as a school art teacher, and will have my last day there at the beginning of February which makes me feel pretty relieved. I again decided to be nothing else than an artist, and to make a living, a business from my craft. I really don't want to do anything else, but at the same time I'm full of doubts if this is possible. Then again, I simply know deep inside that art and animation is my thing.

I try to allow myself to feel weak and tired, and to rest if I need it. I try not to force myself into the creative process, but rather to appreciate it if I'm able to work on little things like drawings or design stuff. I'm trying to treat myself nicely, even though it's sometimes difficult with my monsters or inner critics shouting at me like hell.

It's difficult, and it hurts. It's in my thoughts all the time. But still: there's progress – tiny doses, almost invisible. I'm still angry about not working on the film, but I try to give it some more time until the anger will vanish, and I'll finally start again. I'm glad that I can.

For two weeks I was working on this set, and now it's done:

The set is approx. 70 cm wide and each 50 cm high and deep.

HORRAY!
A few weeks ago I already showed you some furniture that I made for Orpheus' house. Now that house is fully equipped: I built the room with a door, a window and wallpapers, and I added a bed, curtains, and some smaller light sources.

The door is made of strong cardboard, and the Tiffany glass-like window is a strong cel material painted with acrylics. I made the door's joints from strong paper and tooth picks. The little paper lantern is made of, well, paper. To be more precise, it's my all-time favorite sandwich paper. The sandwich paper offers a tactile experience similar to these fine Chinese papers which I like for its subtle quality. There's a small ballon LED inside so I don't need to hide any cables or batteries. (Hat tip to Shelley!)

In the picture above, you'll get an impression of the wallpaper. I originally designed a floral pattern for Eurydice's skirt, and here I used it for some of the furnishing details as well. I had the idea that the audience may not see the pattern here consciously, but somehow remembers and connects it to Eurydice when meeting her in the underworld. I printed the pattern in small stripes on 120gr office paper, and decorated the walls with them.

Like the door, the window is made of strong cardboard. The glass is the strong cel again, and the curtains are made of soft tissue paper. There is some wire in there to keep it in shape. I actually sewed the paper with my sewing machine – but I guess it's hard to see that in a picture of this quality. The curtain rack is simply twisted wire covered with paper.

The bed mainly contains of a box of cardboard. To give the impression of crinkled fabric, I ripped of the upper layer of paper from a piece of corrugated card board, so you now can see its flutes (it's visible in the picture of the dresser). I pretty much like the bed because I had the idea of using handmade paper for the linen and pillows.

The special thing about this paper is, that it also contains rags next to the typical paper ingredients (it's called Bütten in German). It's very strong and has a nearly textile quality. So I sewed the pillows and the blanket, and worked some wire in them to keep them animatable or in shape.

The little candle is made of wax and black yarn. The candleholder is made of several brass thingies from my tool box, and covered in acrylics. I'm not sure if I'm gonna animate a flame or if it's just too much. I think I'll decide that while shooting. I also added a small lamp from my old doll house to the scenery. It's still working, and I ripped of the old fabric and added a new one made of paper.

I now just need to paint a background landscape to hide my studio if anyone is looking through the door or the window, and to tailor Eurydice's bridal dress. I already tested all the camera angles and they seem to work pretty good.

I hope I don't miss a thing. If you want to know anything else, feel free to ask in a comment. I'm so happy because I finished another set. There are still two sets to go, and then I'm nearly done in preproduction.

-----

Oh, and I just stumbled about this picture:

Here is the 2010 version again:

Remember that little bird? I finished another animal puppet today, a cat:

The cat puppet is about 6 cm high and fully moveable.

Like the bird, the cat's "just" a minor character. Together, both of them are supposed to carry a distinctive atmosphere in one of the scenes, and that's why they're not really unimportant.
– And they're a kind of warm-up or dry run for the last two major characters I have to build, too. (Well, there are a few dead souls more to make, but those puppets are going to be pretty basic cut-out models without armatures…)

Since I want the world-of-the living-characters look completely different from the underworld silhouette puppets, I try to apply a similar style to them such as I did to the cemetery set.

Basically, you'll find an armature made of twisted wire and a lot of hot glue inside the puppet, wrapped in thin cardboard covered with sandwich paper and some colour finish on top. I've got the weird feeling that I start repeating myself… Is this still interesting for you?

While it's so paralyzing hot outside, I spend a lot of time in my basement studio to work on the film. It's great: down there I don't sweat myself to death and the film is progressing continuously as well. I worked the whole weekend on the final three silhouette puppets, and here we are: yesterday I finished Orpheus (two puppets, each heading for opposite directions) and Eurydice.

The puppets are made as usual: thin black cardboard is cut into silhouettes which is then attached to aluminium wire. This time I chose very thin wire because the puppets are much smaller than the models I made before. My idea was that the Gods and the God-like characters should be slightly taller than the mortals.

For Eurydice's skirt I designed a floral pattern which I like so much that I designed a digital wallpaper, and which now adorns my computer desktop (in 1920x1080 resolution). If you like it too, feel free to download it either in green or in grey:

You'll find the full resolution images by just clicking into one of the small Wallpaper pictures above. To download one of them, right-click into it, and choose "save picture as…"

My school projects are finished due to the holidays, and I have a lot of time to work on the film. This seems to be a puppet making week, more to come...

Yesterday, something totally unbelievable happened: I finished the cemetery set for my Orpheus film project. I finished it completely. Done. This is just crazy! Now I only have to build the Orpheus puppet, and then I can start animating (though I’m a bit afraid of that for whatever reason…)

I already was nearly there two weeks ago but then Lukas and I went to to London for holidays, inspiration and visiting our friends Weng and Betty, and Simon and Anna. Instead, I did some drawing studies during that time:

1. Tree at the Hyde Park; 2. Girl at Tottenham Court Road; 3. Girl reading (Big Head); 4. Lukas sleeping at the beach; 5. Seaside landscape at Climping Beach.

After being home again, I directly started completing the set:

Nils suggested to add some structure to the cemetery’s landscape and sent me a quick sketch to illustrate his idea:

I pretty much liked and like the idea of the plateau-like hills which are indeed still very flat but provide some rhythm to the set. An important point here is that our eyes need a kind of visual anchor to clearly recognize a perspective. Else the viewer could get visually lost. Thanks to Nils for this is a perfectly matching idea! I’m absolutely pleased with its outcome. (Thank you, again!) My initial idea was to use the plain plywood for the ground but after coming back home with a refreshed view, I decided to give it the same look as the one I use in my drawings.

I also drew the street to the ground, glued everything down and added some grass, stones and other tiny details. Before I finally fixed everything in place, I did quick test shots with the camera to see if all the takes are going to work properly, and well they do!

So the biggest set of the film is done, the progress bar shows 65% on set building, and I’d like to give you some impressions (these are not the final takes!):

I still can’t believe it!

For more details of the close to finished graveyard set click into the image.

I am utterly speechless, sorry!

If you have any question about the set, feel free to ask. I need some sleep, I feel stunned and exhausted but happy...

Supplemental

After sleeping very sound for several hours, I thought it would be nice to share some more information with you about the graveyard set. At the weekend I bought 3 sqm of 19 mm chipboard and and some stands from a DYS store. Since I now have a table, I started to assemble the finished props to it though they aren’t fixed finally yet.

I cut the mountains from strong paper and glued them down in front of the greenscreen which is attached to the wall. I also cut and placed the little wall in the background from paper to achieve a smooth transition from the middleground to the mountains in the background. The paper wall is colored with pencil and watercolors. The other little wall in front of the entry to the underworld is made of foam board covered with paper and the fence is made of wire covered with acrylics plugged into the foam.

The set is now approximately 1.5 m in depth. The problem is that my studio isn’t that big and I have to find a way to deal with that without renting a new room. Next I have to add some more tiny details like a road and some grass and the stairs down to the underworld. Oh, and not to forget an Orpheus puppet…

Today I discovered that I have to solve some technical issues before I could start filming… After yesterday’s ecstasy I thought I could start animating soon, but today I guess there are still few things to do… So, with this little work-hangover I go back to the studio…

Sometimes I don't even notice how quick time is running by. It's been two weeks since my last post, and I've been working on the film every minute I could spare. Else, I talked to my music composer Felipe who is going to develop a soundtrack for my film and we discussed the details and issues. I planned my film as a silent movie, so the music will be nearly as important as the visuals.

Now, this is going to be grave… (oh, and what a pun!)
I'm going to complete the cemetery soon. The graveyard's missing just a few single elements and they'll be finished soon. The last two weeks I spent working on graves and crypts, the entry to the underworld and the final scale of the setting.

Yesterday I put the finishing touches on the graves and a small crypt for the background. For testing purposes I assembled all the single pieces so far and I was stunned – it looks pretty convincing… It's a completely stylized world, but it's definitely working as a whole. Next I need some new table boards because the set is going to be much bigger than I expected it to be. I'll provide you a shot of the set directly after I brought all the props together.

Like all the other props before, these graves are made of different layers of cardboard covered with sandwich paper and colors. This bigger ones are approx. 12 cm high, the small ones about 5 cm.

I use a lot of varying colors: acrylics, watercolors, pastels, China ink, pencils… Most of the time I combine several of them to induce the impression of texture.

The crypt is lit by a single ballon LED which is a great device because those little thingies don't need cables and stuff (hat tip to Shelley, Queen of Halfland)… I covered the building with aluminum foil from its inside to reflect as much light as possible. At the same time I covered the door with semi-transparent tracing paper to achieve a more indirect or spread light.

Now I still have to build the grave of Eurydice and the landscape, finish the entry to the underworld and then it's done. Some more puppet making and I could begin with the first animation, although there are three more sets to build or finish… Wow, that feels crazy (and weird and frightening and cracking good at the same time)… The film now is like a butterfly waiting for its transformation from idea to reality…

This is one thing I love most about art and even more so about animation (and I guess I told it you before): giving birth to something which is artificial but then real, and which influences reality eventually. I stand here watching in unbelieving amazement what we human beings are capable of to create… Sorry for being that pathetic…

This one is about motivation.
If you’re an artist or work as an independent filmmaker, you have to constantly motivate yourself as long as you ever want to finish your projects. The less outside pressure you have (say, other people’s money involved or a tight schedule), the more true this becomes.

I guess the most common advise is to simply get started. But for whatever reason this sometimes doesn’t work. So I wrote a post about being gridlocked some time ago because I know a lot of artists having gridlocked moments from time to time, and so have I.

The other day I read an article in which the author mentioned a very helpful trick. I’d like to share this trick with you because it worked pretty good for me, and for my spouse as well. Hopefully, this will be helpful for you, too. Okay, ready?

Limit yourself

Perhaps you now think she’s nuts. Why should you limit yourself if you haven’t even started yet? The idea is simple: Take any alarm clock, set its alarm a good hour from now, and start whatever needs to be done. You have just this one hour. Nothing more. Do you feel the pressure raising? When the alarm starts to ring, immediately stop. Have a break.

If you love what you’re doing, you’ll definitely want to spend some more time doing what you’re doing right now. You could set the alarm for another hour straight away (though I guess, you won’t need that anymore...). If you’re doing something because you simply have to, just relax. You did a great job so far, you worked on your project for at least one hour, and I’m sure you have some results now. Reward yourself with something nice (nibble some sweets, have a walk, work an hour on beloved projects...). If your unloved project isn’t finished yet, work on it for another hour later (hey, it’s just one hour!), or try to finish it within those initial 60 minutes when possible...

Here’s a list of things I successfully completed during the last three days using this technique:

• a website design for a client
• an illustration layout for a client
• some video editing for my students
• some garden work being absolutely overdue
• some more designs and ideas for the film and
• this blog post.
  

For me, it’s working amazingly well... Let me know when you tried it, and if and how it works for you. I’d love to read your experiences in the comment section.

It took me one hour to draw this draft of the entry to the underworld and by this, realizing some other important things about my set design. Before I did it, I wasn’t sure how Orpheus would know where he has to look for his beloved Eurydice. I hadn’t a clue of what the entry would look like – Tim Burton-esque with screaming colours and a lot of dancing skeletons, or more simple, empty and calm like the rest of the graveyard? I decided to design it the latter way. The skull embracing the door and the crematory-like chimney are the only references to death here.

When I scaled the drawing to the buildings final size, I found out that my set will be much bigger than I believed so far. The final premises are about 40 cm high. Since I’m now going to build the big stuff, I’m getting really exited... It’s fantastic to see what one could achieve in just one hour!

Though most of the tomb stones aren't finished until now, the atmosphere is raising.

I simply love the progress bars... Sometimes I don’t like to talk to much about what I’m doing right now, but the bars show the progress anyway. And today I suddenly realized how much I’ve already completed! I put the cemetery setting together as far as I’ve finished the single pieces and it looked like a real setting... Horray!

I had been to two film festivals as a visitor last week, to the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and to the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film. I had a great time there, saw countless numbers of (animated) short films, had the oppotunity to talk to animation artists like Bruce Bickford personally and yet I’m still inspired by all the artworks I’ve seen – some of them were just amazing!

I had a few new ideas for my film there, too, and after having a heavy cold for few days, I spent the last weekend completely in my studio to work on the settings. I made some props for the graveyard: a tree, a pieta-like sculpture of an angel, about twenty graves (which aren’ finished yet) and two picture frames of Orpheus and Eurydice for their home.

The sculpture is about 20 cm in height, and it’s one of my most favourite pieces so far. It’s important for the graveyrd’s atmosphere since I want it to be somewhat like Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris which is perhaps the most beautiful cemetery I’ve ever been to. Again, everything is made of cardboard, paper and wire covered with a thin layer of acrylics, watercolours and/or pastels.

Little, little things: the picture on the left is approx. 3,5 cm high. I used pin needles as nails to hang the pictures onto the wall.

Today I finished the very next to last character (re)design. It’s Orpheus, the main character of my film (finally!):

Orpheus: character design 2010

Orpheus: silhouette character design

The re-design was necessary due to my decision for a paper look and feel. And after my successful bird animation, I feel confident enough to make a bigger character with these materials. Orpheus now looks a bit more adult or mature, very sad and somehow fragile...

If you’re reading my blog for years now, you’ll perhaps remember that I had a very clear idea of how Orpheus should look like before:

Orpheus: character design 2007

Orpheus: character design 2008

I like the new one much better, it just feels right now. I had never been 100% happy with the old concept, but now I am.

Did you notice the new progress bars on the right, below the navigation (I found them via Shelley Noble’s blog)? I’m nearly done with all the character design. – Unbelievable! Still, there are many things to do but it’s nice to see the progress so clearly...

It’s always a little celebration if I’m going to change the figures... And it’s amazingly motivating to see how much I’ve already finished...

Well, I don’t. But someone else does:
After several posts about other stuff I’m now back working on my Orpheus film project. Last Friday I finished another puppet, a tiny bird. This time it’s a minor character from the world of the living and that’s why it isn’t just a silhouette:

The picture above shows the puppet with rigging wire attached. I used 1.5mm aluminium wire here. The top picture shows the scale drawing. I designed the puppet very small (about 2.5 cm), but it wasn’t possible to build it that size from the materials I’d chosen, so it’s now approx. 3.5 cm in height.
Orpheus is suffering from Eurydice’s death and he plays his lyra for the sake of forgetting his grief for a moment. His music is the only thing he loves as much as he loves dead Eurydice. The bird and one or two other animals are attracted by the sad play and our feathered friend lands on the window ledge and listens to the melody.

I did a small test animation to see if the puppet works:

The bird is made of an armature of twisted 1.0 mm aluminium wire, covered with thin cardboard and paper. The eyes are tiny beads and it’s painted with ink and acrylics. It is the tiniest and yet animateable puppet I have ever made, and I found it a real cutie.

This is what the armature basically looks like.

Though it’s a minor character it was so very important to make it. I was thinking about how to make the upper world character’s design for weeks now, and at the same time I hadn’t any clou. I wanted them clearly made of paper but with a stable armature inside. So, right now: Heureka! I think I’ve got the solution!

Then I checked all my To Do lists for the project yesterday as well, and saw that I finished nearly one third of all sets and puppets which is absolutely great and more than I had expected so far. I’m only a few weeks behind my schedule...

When do you know you’re overworked?
This time I knew it because I hadn’t any time to work on my film since there were millions of other things to do which seems to be much more important... And when I eventually had the time, I sat at my desk in my studio and wasn’t able to do anything because I was so tired, exhausted and angry with myself...

At this very moment I felt and remembered how important this film project is for me, and how much I want it to be a great piece of art – something that touches your soul while you’re watching it... And yes, I know, that’s what they usually call “high expectations”... But nevertheless, that’s what I want...

After feeling sorry for myself for some time and a huge amount of sleep, I finally began to work again, and I came up with some elements for the graveyard setting: I made several trees and finished the wall which surrounds the cemetry today.

Each part of the wall is approximately 25 cm high, and 50 cm long. I used foam board to build its main shape, and different kind of cardboards for the details. As I did with the furniture, I covered the piles with sandwich paper, and the stones with a thin layer of white acrylics. Finally, I added some more drawn details with a pencil and ink to achieve an impression of depth between the bricks and the stones.

I sometimes just like the atmosphere these pictures have....

The hinges are simply made of curved aluminium wire I plugged into the soft foam board. I literally had this wall in my head for weeks now, and I’m so glad I finally build it. I still need some graves, the entry to the unterworld, perhaps a few more trees and I also need a nice background landscape. Altogether I already finished nearly 50% of all the graveyard pieces...

However, today I have no idea how I’d be ever going to finish this film... But I remember former projects: there’s always this point when I think it was a stupid idea to even start such a project. In the majority of these cases, it was nonsense. Each time simply moving on worked best as an antidote...

Unbelievably, two weeks has already passed since my last post... How is this possible? I guess I know. Instead of working on the Orpheus film I did a lot of other, important as well as unimportant things... At some point I was so annoyed by myself that I simply started making backdrops again.

Remember? Two weeks agao I finished a small bedside cabinet, and today finally some other fittings followed: I finished a dresser and a table, two chairs and a vase of flowers with their heads hanging down sadly.

After finishing the pieces I thought it would be great to take some pictures to see how they’d work in front of a camera. And what should I say? I’m absolutely thrilled by how well it all comes together! This is exactly the dreamy and organic paper world I want to create.

I used cardboard in different thicknesses for all plain surfaces as I did for the bedside stand. Even the vase is made of a food storage carton (I guess it was a frozen pizza box...) and it wasn’t as easy to make as it now seems to be. Organic elements like the table’s legs are made of several strings of loosely twisted wire which I covered with a thin layer of sandwich paper.

For the floral elements attached to the table and the flowers in the vase I used tiny branches of a corkscrew hazel. I coated them in a semi-opaque layer of white acrylics to achieve a papery look. I found it very difficult to design the house of a wood nymph because they’d normally live, well, in the woods... But this one, Eurydice, married and moved into a house... So I try to make it as organica and close to nature as possible but yet house-like.

Their home still needs some more attention, furniture and details. At the moment it doesn’t provide

• a door
  
• a window
  
• a bed
  
• curtains
  
• a fireplace
  
• a picture frame
  
• a bridal dress
  
• some light sources and
  
• the room itself with walls and floor.
  

Since I took the pictures today, I’m soo enthusiastic about moving on. I’d love to see the final setting as soon as possible. I am as ecited as you are to see what I’m going to finish next week... What do you think about a window and some curtains?

It’s almost two weeks ago since I last posted about my film’s progress. Since then, I not only ordered new materials to continue the puppet making process finally, I also had another breakthrough in the design concept of the world of the living. That took me some time to develop since I wanted a papery look and feel here but didn’t really have clue how to achieve that.

I tested lots of different kind of papers to find something appealing and now I have a beautiful (and probably cheap) solution:

Orpheus’ bedside cabinet is approx. 73 mm high, 53 mm wide and 38 mm in depth. The scale of the puppets and the props is about 1:8 compared to human size.

After that I covered each the door, the body and the top panel with bookbinding glue and sandwich paper. Yes, sandwich paper. After some tests I decided to use it because sandwich paper isn’t 100% opaque. It looks a bit feathery and has its own texture which suits well to the look I’d like to have in the house.

I also want some deeper shadows between the door and the cabinent’s body for example, so I added green watercolors and black ink. Ideally, you’d get a slight impression of a house in which nature is at home somehow.

The door knob is made of a pin needle with a tiny green ball attached to its end. I fixed a small bead between the needle’s head and the door and painted both bead and needle white with acrylics. The acrylics doesn’t stick to the plastic surface perfectly, so the green of the bead and the needle shines through which gives a nice and fitting effect. At the very end I simply drew the floral design on the door with a fineline pencil. This absolutely is the look I was after, so another problem is eventually solved.

Speaking of drawing, I also finished the boat’s (re-)design in which Orpheus is going to cross the river Styx and the interior’s design as well. I’ll post about the boat soon. Next step is to build the sets. I have one more month to go for preproduction... This week I’d like to finish most of the furnitures... But perhaps this is too ambitious...

Cheerleading, anyone?

Today I finished the concept design of my Eurydice character. She's just a minor one, but she'll have to walk in two directions though. Minor character is a very unprecise description, since Eurydice somewhat like a MacGuffin: she's the reason why the story is going to be told.

The main time she'll be moving to the left when Orpheus and she try to leave the Underworld. But in one situation she'll be moving towards the audience, so that part of puppetmaking (and then animation) could become a little challenging.

Eurydice is an oak nymph, a pure and graceful creature. Nature and wild life are part of her, and she loves to play and dance. She is grounded and lives close to nature, and everything around her is in simple and clear balance. She is married to Orpheus, who tries to free her from the Underworld after she had died.

I assembledd two pictures I shot during my time in Bristol and Vienna to have a nice background. The character's sketch is placed into the picture to get a good impression of what she's like. That tree really exists!

I traced the character's vector outlines by hand, and coloured them black to get an idea of how she'll look like as a shadow puppet. My scale drawing will be based on this picture.

Below you'd see the character design I drew two and half a year ago... I'm much more pleased with the new one, not to say I really like her. I think it won't be easy to build a front-view silhouette puppet but I'll definitely give it a try.

This week I entirely assembled the Charon puppet as I'd announced to do last Sunday. More precisely, I finished two puppets of this character since he's not able to turn his head completely otherwise. He's going to move in two different directions and so I simply mirrored his design which seems to be the easiest solution.

What's next then?
There are only two other silhouette puppets to make, Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice is a silhouette-only character, like Hermes, Hades and Cerberus. I already had a charater design of her, which I had drawn almost two years ago. I wasn't pleased with my first ideas of her design anymore, so I want (and need) to redesign Eurydice. This is going to be one of my next week's tasks.

Else, I still have issues with the concept of the Orpheus puppet. He definitively is the main character and has the widest range of possible movements, so that I have to construct his puppet accurately.

After finishing the silhouette puppets, it's time to design the characters who walk the earth in the world of the living people, namely Orpheus and Charon. Up to now I don't really have a clue how to build them. I've got some general ideas but I guess this needs some more time to breed in the lab...

Furthermore I finished the research on materials and visual references for the house setting and Charon's boat which is great. I'm going to publish the concept drawings as soon as they're done.

My To Do lists on 14 February, 2010. The first one is my modell making list, the four others are for the different settings.

You can see the current state of my To Do lists above. There are still a lot of things to do, but I also see and feel the progress... For a long time I wasn't sure if I'd ever finish the film, but today I'm quite optimistic... Next week I'm going to have more spare time to work on the project, and I hope to complete some more tasks.

Things I absolutely want to get done by the end of oncoming week:

• concept and silhouette concept drawing Eurydice
  
• scale drawing of her
  
• concept drawings of the house's interior like furnitures and stuff
  
• buy new modell making materials and
  
• work on the living puppets' concept.
  

Sorry for this dry report...

A week can be very short.

Last sunday I announced to finish the silhouette concept of Hermes, his scale drawing and his armature. These public deadlines work great for me and I finished it all. So big thanks to Shelley Noble on whose blog we evolved the idea of adding some external pressure to our productions .

This week's achievements: the finished Hermes silhouette puppet. It wasn't much more work to finish it completely.

Since I also work in schools and museums, I had just a minimum of time to work on the film the last days. I don't know how I managed to be in schedule, but I did it.

Actually, I even finished some more things I didn't announce: I assembled the Cerberus silhouette puppet, too, and I did some more research for the house's interieur, its furnitures and details.

Heck, I'm too tired to tell you all the details, but the process is always the same with the silhouette puppet making:

• brainstorm
  
• find references
  
• make concept drawings
  
• vectorize concept drawing
  
• assemble (paper) prototype
  
• correct vector drawings if necessary
  
• make scale drawings
  
• build aluminium wire armature with bones made of milliput
  
• cut out single pieces from black cardboard
  
• glue cardboard to armature
  
• spraypaint black from behind
  

The illustration above was absolutely a happy accident: when I spraypainted the puppet's back, I laid it on a sheet of paper to avoid stains on the floor. I really love the result, and that's why it made its way directly to another mood board...

Those are my finished puppets so far. I'm still surprised but pleased how well they look together...

For next week, I'm going to work on Charon's silhouette character. I have to design his silhouette concept, a scale drawing and his armature... It's pretty much a routine workflow now...

My friend Shelley Noble and I agreed that it would be nice to report the progress of each's film project on our blogs weekly. The idea behind this is to increase a kind of outside deadline pressure since self-set deadlines for some reason never really seem to work...

So I announced to finish the Hades silhouette puppet and the armature for Cerberus this week, and what should I say? I did it! Ha! I must admit that getting things done leaves a pretty pleasant aftertaste. To celebrate I'd like to share some pics:

The finished Hades silhouette puppet before he was spraypainted black from behind.

...and a look behind the scenes.

At first glance Hades looks like a cut-out puppet and to some degree he is. I glued his silhouette to a simple wire armature. Though I use silhouettes in the Underworld's setting, I also want to employ delicate lighting and depth of field.

I decided to combine the flat visuals with an aluminium wire armature to use the advanteges of classical puppet animation (its bones are made of super-fine Milliput). I finally sprayed all parts with a thin layer of black colour from behind to avoid reflections during the animation.

Cerberus scale drwaing...

...and the finished armature.

The Cerberus puppet is going to be pretty much the same, despite he's a quadruped character. Eventually, the naked armature will be hidden behind all the single black cardboard pieces and also painted black from behind.

I did some more research on props and characters, too. My final preproduction deadline is at the beginning of April. I have a little countdown widget for my Mac's Dashboard, and it says that there are 61 days left.

Next week I'm going to finish the silhouette concept of Hermes, his scale drawing and his armature as well.

Have a nice week, everybody!

Today was a succesful day, at least so far. I'd given the Hermes charakter design several tries before, but I still wasn't satisfied with the results yet. I decided to go back to the very beginning of his character development, and started brainstorming again.

I swiftly wrote a list of 100 features I associate with him, ancient Greek's Great Messenger. During this process I wouldn't edit myself, and it's very important to do it as quickly as possible. This one is about creativity and I don't want my left brain to question my ideas at this point.

The next step is to find connections between the different catchwords. I ordered them by categories like with regards to content, materials and textures or character's appearance. I then employed these keywords in my research on visual references.

Here's a brief description of what he's going to be alike in my film:

"My" Hermes is a boyish man and the incarnated message or news. He's young and in good shape. He looks somehow birdlike, and his clothing is light and has a lot of feathers attached. He' bright and honest, passive and neutral like Switzerland in WWII. Deep down he's sensitive and lonely.

So I collected pictures of

• Hermes sculptures from several centuries
• ballet dancers
• differnet types of helmets and caps
• travelling cloaks
• angels
• birds, especially raven, and their wings
• silk and
• old newspapers.

From these collection I took single elements and assembled them in a drawing. After a visit to the Photoshop department, I now have a nice concept drawing of the Hermes character (I placed him into a picture of Vienna's Central Cemetery):

Well, this sketch is a lie.

The final puppet will be animated in the Land of the Dead, so he'll eventually be only a shadow of his former self. I'm going to work on his silhouette next.

It's been three weeks now since I've started working on the Orpheus project continously again. I got stuck during the puppet making process and did some research instead to find visual references for the backdrops and for some of the other puppets as well. I decided not to have only one huge reference wall but a smaller one for each setting of the film to find the specific look and feel for every single take, somehow like that one:

My reference walls are collections of photos and drawings I took or made myself, pictures from the internet, and sometimes found materials like little pieces of lace, paper or else. First of all, I collect them intuitively and without editing. Eventually I sort them according to categories like colours, textures or function of their respective kind of stage prop, for example. This mood board gives a nice impression of how the look and feel of the cemetery setting is going to be alike.

I also wrote several to do lists to get an overview of all the things which need to be done before I could start animating. It seems like there is still much to do but I can see the progress more clearly now. Since everything is listed I'm not afraid of missing something important any more. Aaand: Ticking items off the lists is always so very satisfying...

My puppet-making to do list is one out of only six checklists so far, though it feels like several dozens of them. Mhmmm, lists! Lists make progess visible... Progress is gooood!

So... Back to progress. – Back to work!

From time to time I'm reading a blog called Zen Habits on which Leo Babauta, the founder and main author of this website, writes about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives, personal developement and accomplishing self-setted goals. With great interest I read Leo's post written to assist his readers to stick to their New Year’s resolutions. I decided to give it a try.

Why? – Well, you know, it's been two and a half year since I began working on the Orpheus project and I now really. want. to finish it. I want to have it done by the end of the year which sounds quite ambitious then, hm? But by telling you this I make sure that failing is a sort of embarrassing which hopefully keeps me away from doing so.

Last week I started working on the puppets again but only for a tiny amount of my day's time. However, I did it daily. This week I expanded the time window and I haven't missed a day which really makes me feel great. Though I always believed I havn't got much done up to now, I learned this wasn't true. After decluttering all the former results I now have a much better idea of how the silhouette puppets are going to be. I get used to the quotidian work in my studio and it started feeling like a job.

I reorganized the production time schedule and I absolutely think it's possible to finish the film within this year. I want to give my own artistic and personal development more room in my life since I want it to be more important than all the other things I do. Hell, that's what I always wanted to do, but for the last six months I just denied it. So again I decided to be an animation artist. – We'll see if I'll stick to this.

As a small foretaste of the silhouette puppets I'm working on have a look at these picuters of recently created prototypes:

Hades is the god or king of the Ancient Greek underworld. This silhouette puppet dummy is made of thin cardboard and approx. 35 cm at full height.

Cerberus is the three-headed hellhound who secures the entry to the underworld. This dummy is made of paper, and its shoulder height is about 10 cm high. I took this picture while the model was lying on my light table to get an impression of how it may look as a sihouette.

Especially the cerberus puppet moves nicely. And I'm really looking forward to animate the finally assembled puppets...

PS Tomorrow is the second birthday of einfachanimation.de. Horray! – Though I'm neither in the mood for a party nor for any review this time. But I promise we're going to celebrate next year!