A topic to animate

 For the last 12+ years I have been fortunate to have become friends with a very talented world builder who as been as much an inspiration as they have been a support when I have had a crisis in confidence when it comes to my own world building and creativity. They have created a seemingly endless world that fills the explorer with awe and excitement. This individual is Mike Thorp of World of Twilight Miniatures.

I have, for a while now, been wanting to create an animation based on his world. For no other reason than that the world inspires me. His miniatures are a part of a tabletop game and within that world exist the Delgon and Dhogu factions, which I have always been drawn to. So, this led me one day to have a conversation with him about me possibly having fun and making a stop motion puppet of one of his characters called Tak Sirhan,

How will I make Tak Sirhan?

Tak Sirhan is from the Dhogu faction and evokes a lot of wonder in my imagination. How does the character walk, their gestures, are they playful or stern. I want to see this character come to live, and I want to animate it. Not using A.I. but rather in a way that I love. As a stop motion puppet. Just because I can, and wholly because I have the skills and drive to do so.

So, how am I going to tackle this!? There will be certain limitations to what I can achieve in my modest little garage workshop. I don't have Laika-esque colour 3D printing facilities so that level of work will be out of the way even though I can 3D model/sculpt. I do have a 3D printer, but I'm thinking that traditional sculpting will be on the cards with resin cast replacement face parts.

I currently don't have access to my own CNC mill or CNC machine, though there is one on one of my work surfaces in the workshop currently being built. However, I have a friend who does have one so we will be making bespoke ball and socket joints for Tak Sirhans armature. The little Skirat (the little creature on their shoulder) may have to sit this one out though. It may be something I revisit later as I do have a box full of 4mm bearing armature parts I made years ago in a box somewhere that was meant for a cat puppet. For now though it's off the cards.

First steps

The first thing for me to do is to make a lot of observations of the original sculpt that is sat on the desk in front of me whilst I write this journal entry. From there I will go on to resculpt a larger version of the model (probably around 8 cm tall) to understand the shapes I will be working towards. Then, once I'm happy with it (and I've show Mike to get his thoughts) I will seta bout planning to make all the parts that will be bought together to form the finished Tak Sirham puppet. This is, of course, a simplified description what this process will entail. There will be a lot of testing, sculpting, resculpting, test animations of the armature and face/mouth tests. It's a lot of work, but I think it's going to be fun. 

Now, we talk about timeframes. The time to make this happen could be anything from several weeks to a few months if I was working on this full-time. However, I have a full-time job which isn't even in the same industry these days so this will all be done in my spare time. This means that a target date is not going to be that easy and each part of this will have to be a smaller mini project in its own right. There is a part of me that just wants to get animating straight away with a quick and rough wire armature over a rushed foam body; but I want to do this properly and spend a good amount of time on it. So, drawings and 8cm Maquette are the first steps. I'm on annual leave while I write this, so I should be able to get a little bit of drawing done and maybe, If I'm lucky, make a start on the maquette.

Stay focused

I'm looking forward to this and hope that I am able to keep myself focused on it. The key is for the love of the art, not for like or to create rapid turnaround content like so many people focus on these days. To use the well known motto "art for arts sake". I won't be posting up regularly, but rather when I have time and enough work has been done to warrant a post being made. Wish me luck.