flux

So.. once you’ve made your el cheapo capture stand, how about some el cheapo frame capture software to go with it? Well, I’ll do better than that: How about some FREE frame capture software?
Enter MonkeyJam*. It can capture frames from your webcam or camcorder, has nifty features like an X-sheet, frame averaging, sound import (WAV [...]

Here’s a neat little capture stand you can make at home using simple, cheap materials. I based it on the photography light box tutorial at this page. It uses a regular cardboard box, two lamps (one on each side) and some tracing paper to diffuse the light. The original tutorial uses halogen lamps, but desk [...]

Just finished animating a walk test for the Jekyll puppet. Here’s how it went down:
Planning:
I started by blocking out the walk in 2D using Flipbook. For this character, I wanted a somewhat stiff, serious attitude in the body, combined with a heavy step. Here’s the result (animated on 2s at 24 fps):

I printed out the [...]

He’s done!

After I put the head on the neck, I just smoothed out the neck area with my fingers. The hands are made of plasticene, just like the head. I also remade the pants entirely, as I decided his belt line needed to be higher. Finally, I added lines under the eyes so that he [...]

A: Very carefully.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts after watching Wall-E yesterday. While it didn’t take my gut on as big a thrill ride as most Pixar movies do, it tickled my brain more than any of their movies to date. That’s because it has quite a few “firsts” for a Pixar movie. I [...]

He’s got a face! Plus a vintage 40s fedora hat (a must-have accessory for any respectable film noir cliché). I used Van Aken plasticine for the head and hair, painted beads for the eyes, and super sculpey (baked) for the eyelids. The hat is made from the same fabric as the pants, and the hatband [...]