End of year exhibit

My end of year exhibit made use of all my wall space and area with film and 3d work as well as 2d work.

Final Film - The Dancing Doll

This film includes the newly added fade out and in, organised credits, opening title. I am very happy with the film as it is very smooth but jerky in the sense that it adds to the creepiness. With the addition of the music and the syncing with the dance i feel it really portrays my theme of misconception, this creepy doll dancing to an appealing song in contrast to its appearance as well as the appealing dance which flows compared to the dolls scrappiness.

working back into old images

I worked back into two of my previous images, the first being my fourth doll drawing that i had already worked into and the second being my large drawing of my clown doll

 first i tried using a small part of black to see how it might look and then spread it across the rest of the background with a white outline to bring it forward and separate the doll from the background.

 I then added details from my newly designed circus around it (beads, border and lights) because of the pose and placement of the doll i wanted to keep it symmetrical to an extent.

 While working on the other image i used the same colours as the actual doll but darkened down with black ink, the ink also made the paint drip creating quite terrifying imagery.

 I added shading with pastels under the hair, chin and collar using a black and on the face a white to balance it out i also added white to the eyes, i think this gives the image some life making it seem incredibly eerie.

 The hair was to light so i went over it with a darker paint.

 I also went over the border with the same paint to make it more solid and curved the 'light'.

The New Stop motion

With this stop motion i made it longer with more photographs which overall made the dance movements slower which also made it easier to sync up the motion with the music. My main problem here was that the music ends quite abruptly so i plan to fade it out and in to make it seem more natural.

I also need to work on the ending credits so that they don't zoom past the screen

Illustrations in colour

As i worked into the other images with water colours they looked much nicer than the messy image from before, the previous one felt unorganised while because these have nothing else but the dolls the focus is on the dolls.

Illustrations

As well as the stop motion work i also started working on 2d pieces of work on stretched paper. These images like my previous drawings were done in stick and ink.

Originally these drawings were meant to be worked into like the previous large pieces i had done however...

Actual first attempt at stop motion

This was my first attempt at using the camera and moving the doll to get used to moving the doll for the stop motion. it went a lot faster than i had originally thought even though its quite simple.

Circus tent details 2

I wanted to add more details to the tent since i had time to do so and that i wanted to make the tent look more exaggerated and outlandish with little bits of details.

The ribbon was added on either side of the curtain to first of all cover the string tying it open and second to make those ties more interesting visually.

 The beads are one of my favourite features as i feel they make the tent more circus like, similar to bunting and other hanging decorations on circus tents.

 The original plan for the border was to cover up the lower lighting as it looked very messy but also to give the circus a finished and framed feel to it. however when the lights were being held down (with tape) they were starting to over heat so they were left loose, the boarder still covers a large majority of it though.

The cones are painted white card cut to make small cones to cover over the top of the large nails sticking out the roof. to hold them in place i wrapped the leftover beads which i feel looks really nice.

My stop motion

I took the doll that i found the most appealing as well as the most balanced and used it in my first stop motion. I started doing the stop motion before i had fully finished the circus tent to my liking as i didn't know how much time it would take me or how difficult or easy it would be.
It was actually a lot faster and easier than i had originally thought. while the doll was awkward to move because the wire, while moveable, is very firm and stiff. the stop motion also resulted in being very jerky and jumped about  quite a bit it was also a lot shorter than the original minute long film i thought it would be. The Dance the doll performs is called Autumn the same as the song it dances to, and was originally performed by my sister for a show. The show was called En Pointe and was put on by a friend of the family who is a dance teacher who did the choreography for the original dance.
As i felt i had the time i decided to work into the tent and do another stop motion this time hopefully improved.

First Tent details

My main reason for making the dolls was to draw from and to use in stop motion and i realised in my first test animatic (which i should if its not been deleted be putting up in due time) that i was going to need some form of background and surrounding area. i decided to make my own circus tent because of my research into the circus itself.

So to make the tent i used a pin board base with a frame nailed and glued into it made from wooden sticks and nails.

 After the frame was made i took a large sheet of material and draped it over the frame, cutting holes for the spikes to poke through. I then cut the material to fall and cover the tent without overlapping each other, except for the front where it will be tied back which would produce folds in the material any way.

Before putting the material back on i painted each side and roof with red and white stripes like that of a traditional circus tent, but i darkened the colour with brown to make it have a more sinister feel, i did this on both sides of the tent.

Doll creation Part 8 Final Part Clothes

With each doll i wanted to give them different clothing as well as clothing that went with peoples opinion of what sort of clothes made a doll appealing or creepy. So after gathering peoples opinions i designed different clothes for each doll.

As the below doll had a very feminine face i chose to focus on giving it a dress, working on dark material and thinking with the idea of old, worn dresses. the stitching was very haphazard and irregular which i quite liked as it added to the off putting image of the doll.

 The second doll i wanted to put some type of robe or hood to cover the head and face, so i used a large amount of material to create a hood and robe (with button), however it ended up quite bulky and not very tight unfortunately. The trousers were stitched inside out and then flipped round and put onto the doll like normal trousers. the upper half of the body was a ribbon tied around the torso.

 The third doll takes ideas from the above two dolls. The stitching and layout/hemming of the dress is a lot neater overall and with a change of material the robe and hood hung much more softly and i stitched it much tightly in.

 This final doll i chose to try something different and made a jumpsuit like my original clown doll i looked at early on in the project. the jumpsuit on its own was boring so i added a flared collar and cuffs, i used paper as i didn't have the right coloured material.

Doll Creation Part 7 Hands

On two of the dolls i gave them hands to have a look at how a special type of air drying clay would work instead of the ceramic i used for the heads. it was too late to use as a head so it was used as hands with wire and cocktail stick fingers while it worked well to be something that dried quickly it didn't hold well so the fingers gradually fell out.

Doll Creation Head attachment Part 6

The heads were painted with acrylic paint like before and went through multiple design and variations. When i attached the heads to the wire i posted the wire through holes made in the base and roof, this was very awkward and difficult to do as i couldn't fit the wire in the holes or angle the wire correctly (at first) i stripped the wire of its covering making it thinner and more malleable so i could get it through the holes attaching the head to the body.

Doll Creation 5 Wire Bodies

 The above bodies were made headless for the previous doll heads. They were made the same way as the previous bodies, minus the wire heads. In place of the wire head i left a large wire strand to connect the head to the body.

On two of the bodies i put calico to see if it was easier to attach the clothes to the body or not.

Doll Creation Part 4 Doll Heads

These heads were made with the intention of going onto wire bodies so in comparison to the previous doll heads they are much smaller and like with the second two heads they were based off of a list of what people find appealing and creepy, so two of the heads are appealing and the other two are more sinister and creepy.

Doll creation part 3 the body

I wanted to make bodies for my dolls that were sturdy and could have movable limbs. After look at an artist who made wire dolls I decided that I would make my own.

These are my first attempts at making wire bodies the first was top heavy, the second wasn't aesthetically pleasing so the third I tried to combine the best of both, the aesthetics of the first and the balance of the second. 

Doll creation part 2 large doll heads creepy and appealing

The next doll heads were made using a questionnaire of what people find creepy and appealing about dolls. The above doll was focused on the creepy side which had very prominent features while the below was the appealing doll that had more subtle features.

When applying the paint I looked to what people found creepy once again as well as sticking to my colour palette.