Self Initiated Brief Part 1

Animating 'Thank You, Baked Potato' song, Part 1

I have been having some hard time with my personal life over the last few days and saw an opportunity to make a fun short animation to Matt Lucas' Thank You Baked Potato as I have already mentioned in my Professional Practice Blog. Here, I am explaining the actual process of making the video.

While it is a self-initiated project it is done to a chosen song that informs the structure of this film. Practically similar to the 11 Seconds Club, though it has got an ambitious length of 1 minute.

Rough of the idea for the story

One character is an Airedale Terrier dog

Fabric options

Making the puppet from wire and foam board.

Small paper bag made from a normal-sized bag with wire lining to make it posable.

Coffee stained faux fur fabric I had leftover

Coffee dried the faux fur into hard spikes, the vegetable brush was used to brush these out. I had to wear a face mask for this due to the small particles that got released in the process.

Testing the poses of the puppet

More posing

Another test

And another (testing the puppet dragging groceries bag into the house) 

Testing the coffee-stained faux fur

Adding the faux fur on the head using some hot glue

Fur for the ears

Stitching the fur in sections. 3 sections per leg. This allows full flexibility as the fabric is non-stretch.

There is no need for extra bulking out thanks to the fabric's volume and how it holds shape. 

Treating the puppet as if it was alive already. PAW!

Progress with stitching

Melted Polymorph, coloured in with acrylic-gouache (matt) paint and textured after softening in water. 

Two-piece head with separated tongue, to allow for the mouth movement

I look happy, have not run out of hot glue just yet, few sticks left at this point

The puppet is almost finished, Only missing the eyes and the signature back patch of an Airedale Terrier.

Tadaaaaaa, as an animator I like to get to know the puppet, it helps me create its expressions. So I took this puppet into the kitchen while I cooked my dinner.

It is a poser! 

While I made the dinner, I played with posing and taking pictures of the puppet.

Visually, the puppet is very appealing and has a character to it. I am very pleased, it is my first ever puppet of a dog other than 2D/3D claymation. It is expanding my experience as well as my portfolio. 

I did expect to work with a fluffy fabric to be harder but it was all good as long as I kept an eye on the direction in which the fabric layers, just like when hand stripping a wiry fur.

However, on the technical side, there is a number of flaws. Soon I have realized that the armature is not strong enough to hold the puppet. At this point, I have decided to continue simply because I wanted to experience dressing this puppet. 

The Jurasstic glue was not a good idea for this, though with the art shops shut and the delivery times unpredictable, it was my best option. I won't use it again for this application. The same goes for the foam, it is fairly brittle, though I did not have anything better to use.