Progress! This weekend was beautiful out and was time for some armaturing.
Necessary supplies: dremel tool, assorted bits for it (sanding drum, cut off disc and drill bits being the most handy), goggles, jewellers saw, 4-40 thread tap,
jewellers pin vice (amazingly handy thing!) and some oak.
And, of course, an entertained shop dog. He won't go in if I'm out - I think he's convinced I run around with a frisbee and tennis balls the second he looks away.
The armature design is inspired by various types posted on the forums, and by
Andrew Brown's work. The oak is a pain to cut, but makes up for it with sanding beautifully! Rods will go into the bottom of these pieces with balls on the end (wooden) to make ball & socket ankles/feet.
This is a shoulder piece - b&s joint on the shoulder, and hinge joint with elbow. (Will be a hinge and swivel combo on the lower half of the arm). After basic shaping is done, a burred ball bit for the dremel is used to curve out the inside of the joint.
Once the inside of the joint is shaped, it's placed over the ball and pounded down until the ball pops in place. Then a hole is drilled through to add a tension screw. Initially I tried threading the hole in the oak, but the threads gave before the oak tightened, so a nut is still necessary. The nut will be slightly indented into the wood then glued in place. Once I know what hardware is needed the screws will be replaced with appropriately long hex screws.
One of the completed segments - ball and socket hip joint, hinge knee. Metal rods will be picked up tomorrow for more assembly!
End of day, and a dog tired from the day in the sun.
Now heading out to Dugald means seeing... the Praries. This one was taken just beyond the perimeter. It's crazy how fast you can be surrounded by one massive field...
Normally I'm not much inspired by the praries, and always find it exciting to go some place with hills, let alone mountains! But this trip came at just the right time - figuring out what Henry's paintings will look like. I shot about 300 pics through 3 trips out there, and will be using them as the basis for compositions of Henry's painting - happy to be inspired!
Henry is a painter, an artist... though he hasn't really done anything in a long while. This is about to change. Here are his canvasses - currently 30 plus some stretcher frames, will see if I need more once the set is up. Some will be painted right from the get go and others done during the animation - but I'm waiting to see how they look in the set before painting them. There are 2 stains of wood, and differently primed canvasses;
Adding the mini staples (some back, some side) took about 1/2 hr per canvas - each is made out of jewellery wire and had to be bent to shape and holes punched in the canvas frame.
And this is the floorplan for Henry's studio, very excited! The set room was re-cleaned tonight and set building starts tomorrow. Since storyboards are finished I mapped out each shot - each layer of gray is what that shot sees, so the darker the area, the more popular it will be. The set is 5' across and will break away in a few places for access, with all removable walls.
