Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Smaller and smaller we go!


I've started the gloves! Having Ceri (WoollyMonster) doing miniature work as well is great encouragement. This is using 0.5mm needles with 1 strand of embroidery thread - there are approx. 30 stitches per inch. Since they're fingerless I'm going to cheat and pinch the fabric together between the fingers rather than make teeny individual bits, so the piece below is the pattern to follow. It's slow going - the thread is very slippery and the needles very bendy!
I've also been working on his sweater (he wears alot of clothes, this one!) I couldn't find a properly scaled verigated yarn I liked, so I bought a thicker brown embroidery cotton (original colour seen in the second pic) then dyed it with black and white acrylic ink.

I like how the colouring turned out, but it turns my hands gray when I knit it! No doing this on the bus. I'll probably coat it with a diluted matt glaze when it's done so it doesn't powder gray all over the set.And here's part of the sweater vest! He puts this on after waking up from falling asleep in his chair - a way to add character and incidental animation (hopefully!) Knitting's been great for giving me time to think over the next storyboards and really try to develop it fully.
And... can't film without a nice orderly set room! I've been spending time trying to get the spare room I work in to an 'everything in it's right place' mentality. It's coming along but slowly! Too much stuff.
Detail - paints, Sculpey and supplies.

13 comments:

Woolly Monster said...

Wow, that's even smaller than I've been working!

Do you wear magnifying lenses when you knit? I 've been thinking about buying some for crocheting (probably not wise to wear them on the bus though).

I'm very inpressed with your hand dyed variegated yarn and as for your wonderfully organised animation room - I'm jealous!
The room I use is also my partner's 'junk room' so I share the space withloads of bags and boxes full of action figures and tapes of bad 1980s pop music...

Shelley Noble said...

INSANE!!!! Crazy small woot! And your art space wow! So well stocked and neat! go get 'em!

Mike said...

Now that you've got it all organized, make a mess and create something! :)

I can't wait to see your entry for the coraline contest. Sounds really neat.

Everything looks great!

jriggity said...

My goodness ....you knitters got crazy skills!

I might be coming to you when me and shel make our feature. We are going to need super fine clothing for our puppets.

jriggity

Emily said...

Thanks everyone!

Ceri - last night I was wearing those big magnifying glasses that are like a visor - I didn't find them very handy - just emphasize how big and clumsy fingers are! Worth trying though, good for seeing the stitches more clearly.
Thanks Shelley! Hope to get the rest of the space good to go soon!
Mike - I made progress on the Coraline entry tonight - probably leak some info about it soon ;)
And Justin - I'd love to help out with outfits, just let me know when you know what you need!

a guy in a gorilla suit said...

The term "vanishing point" gets a completely new meaning for me (not a native speaker...) - smaller and smaller and smaller and then - gone. Gone? Nope. O,5 milimeter needles. Where will this all once end? Fo you know the short film "Powers of 10"?

And it's all so cute!

amoebaboy said...

wow!
teeny tiny knitting, and the tidiest work area ever, my workspace is usually unimaginable chaos from start to finnish.

Anonymous said...

Great to see you've been keeping busy. And ORGANIZED! Man, you could drop a pin in there and find it.

Anonymous said...

Wow your's and Wolly Monster's stuff makes my Flea Chariot look like a monster truck!

I did resort to using a magnifier for some of my work and I also took photos with a digital camera and checked details that way.

Edwound Wisent said...

(^ speaking of micro needles:
you ever heard of nano hairs?

http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10188

(^ this is all about the dreadlocks.

when you start knitting with a electron microscope, let me know.

Anonymous said...

Woah! I could never knit period, but that's amazing! And workspacewise, we are seriously birds of a feather. (Although mine waffles between trashed after a good project explosion and then back in the cubbies for everything...) I'm showing this later to my husband so he doesn't think I'm the *only* one! ;D

Can't wait to see some more animation from you!

Emily said...

Hey Crinklefish, great minds think and work alike! It's organized when I have time to organize, and I love my bins... but when I get working, it's absolute chaos! It's like tides of disorder washing over the room :)

Dan Metalmadcat said...

one day I will need some fabrics, and you will surely qualify for it.

Either that or I quit making any good plot that does not include fabrics.


Okay, out of the storm:

great stuff!! Keep it up, also I watched your Coraline entry. I probably commented that on the forum.

all the best,

Dan MMC