A rotating dodecahedron that I just completed for my current animation project. For Plato, the dodecahedron symbolised “Cosmic Harmony”. It is a three-dimensional representation of the symmetry of the pentagon and the “Golden Ratio”, that occurs organically throughout the natural world.
Jan Švankmajer & “The Ninth Heart”
I had the great pleasure of contributing some animation and artwork for the All The Haunts Be Ours Vol. 2 box set from Severin Films. One of my contributions included an animated title sequence for a featurette on the fantasy-horror Czech film The Ninth Heart (original title Deváté srdce, 1979), directed by Juraj Herz. This film boasts an animated title sequence by stop-motion maestro Jan Švankmajer and his wife and frequent collaborator, artist Eva Švankmajerová. Their title sequence used a top-down, 2D stop-motion technique with articulated paper puppets. According to what I could find on the Internet (there’s very little written on this hidden gem), Eva painted all the backgrounds while Jan did the animation. In addition to a credit for “visual effects”, Jan Švankmajer is credited as the “artistic collaborator”, which suggests his involvement in the design of the marionette puppets seen throughout the film. The title sequence and the marionettes are very much in a naïve, folk art style that one would expect from an independent travelling puppeteer (one of the main characters).
My title sequence adopts this folk art style and references both the Švankmajer animated title sequence, the marionettes, and also some of the main characters in the film.
The image below is a screen grab from the Švankmajer title sequence.
The Ninth Heart paper puppet theatre
Time lapse video demonstrating how to build the NINTH HEART paper puppet theatre that I created for the ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS VOL. 2 limited edition deluxe box set. Available from Severin Films.
The (Im)mortal Lobster
I wasn’t expecting a lobster to emerge as the main protagonist of my latest animation The Music of the Spheres, but there you have it. Also, lobsters are rather fun to draw.
Fun fact: it was once believed that lobsters were “biologically immortal”, meaning that they regenerate throughout their lives rather than die. This isn’t true, though they can be very long-lived. (There are jellyfish that are biologically immortal, however).
This scene — and by expansion, the film — is inspired by the traditional iconography of the moon card from the Tarot. A card from the Major Arcana, the moon card typically includes imagery of a full or crescent moon, two towers flanking a body of water, a dog, a wolf, and a crayfish. Not all versions of the moon card in the various (and numerous) Tarot decks include all of this iconography. Many edit out the dog and wolf, but include the crayfish.
I’ve changed the crayfish into a lobster, simply because I think they look better.
“The card depicts a night scene, where two large pillars are shown. A wolf and a domesticated dog howl at the Moon while a crayfish emerges from the water. […] According to A.E. Waite’s 1911 book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, “The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit… The dog and wolf are the fears of the natural mind in the presence of that place of exit, when there is only reflected light to guide it… The intellectual light is a reflection and beyond it is the unknown mystery which it cannot reveal.” Additionally, “It illuminates our animal nature” and according to Waite, “the message is ‘Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature, while the abyss beneath shall cease from giving up a form.’” — from Wikipedia.
Scenes 1 & 2, complete…maybe.
Happy with the rotoscoped animation. Debating changing the star field background. Even though I’m drip-feeding my footage for this project — something I swore I wouldn’t do — I actually find it interesting to document the various stages and changes made during the creative process. There’s a lot of back-and-forth and, if you’re not questioning your decisions, then perhaps there’s no opportunity for growth.
Anyway, glad to have completed the digital painting on the rotoscoped animation on Scene 2 just prior to the start of the school term. This project will get shelved until the term quiets down.
UPDATE:
Decided to try out another digital star field in After Effects, and I’m happy with this one. Looks more subtle than the previous background.
All The Haunts Be Ours Vol. 2 box set
Last summer, I had the great pleasure of contributing some animation and artwork for the All The Haunts Be Ours Vol. 2 box set from Severin Films. My contributions include a paper puppet theatre, and an animated title sequence for a featurette on the beautifully restored dark fantasy film The Ninth Heart, directed by Juraj Herz. This Czech film boasts an animated sequence by stop-motion maestro Jan Švankmajer and his wife and frequent collaborator, artist Eva Švankmajerová. Their title sequence used a top-down, 2D stop-motion technique with articulated paper puppets, a technique to which my sequence pays humble homage.
This box set looks INCREDIBLE. Many thanks to Kier-La Janisse for enlisting me in this dream commission.
Work-in-progress, July 2024.
How’s your summer going? I’ve been rotoscoping the first two scenes of my latest animation. Due to all the folds in this costume, I typically manage only 1-2 frames per day. Fortunately, for the sake of my sanity, most of this project will not be rotoscoped. I wanted a certain look in the first three scenes, however, and for that it had to be rotoscoped.
Parallax effect with Toon Boom Harmony
Been learning Toon Boom Harmony and I really like the camera movement feature. Was able to achieve this parallax effect* fairly quickly. Still heaps to learn but I’m digging it.
*when the different elements of a layout move at different speeds, creating a 3D depth effect.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Circus Sideshow
Papercut Puppets will be a vendor at the upcoming Bazaar of the Bizarre. There’s lots to enjoy at this market including performers, DJs and lots of unique, hand-crafted clothes, art and crafts.
As some of you may know, I started my Etsy shop in 2019 as a side project, in part inspired by the paper cutout animations I was creating at the time. I had been making articulated paper puppets for my various film projects and, when I would bring my puppets into the classroom to share with my animation students, they would delight in them as art objects onto themselves. It occurred to me that there was a small market for such things, and thus Papercut Puppets was born.
Jump ahead five years, one pandemic and one concussion later, and I’ve decided to wind things down with my shop. There’s a few reasons for this:
- It was only ever conceived as a side hustle with no plans to make it my full-time occupation. I’m happy being an art instructor and animator, and those pursuits will likely remain to be my main focus.
- Some of the materials used to make my puppet kits — mainly, the coloured 3mm mini-brad paper fasteners — have all but disappeared from the market. The manufacturers from whom I’ve bought these have stopped selling them, and I’ve not found a comparable replacement.
- I’ve run out of the printed bag toppers, cardboard backing boards, and printed promotional cards and have decided not to reorder, since that would mean another 2-3 year commitment.
In short, if you’ve enjoyed my quirky creations over the years, now is the time to purchase before they cease to exist. One of my popular designs, the mermaid, has now sold out and been retired. I have very limited quantities of other designs (the bat and octopus have less than 3 each).
Admission to the Bazaar of the Bizarre is free. April 27th, open to the public from 11am-8pm. Located in Parkdale Hall, 1605 Queen Street West. My Etsy shop is: https://papercutpuppets.etsy.com
Making moon morphs
Quick studio update. As the winter term slowly begins to wind down, I’ve stolen a few moments to work on my Music of the Spheres storyboard. Even though the board is not yet complete, I decided to try out a complex morph for an image that will appear in the film. I think I’m happy with this. Have tried adding a boil to the static moments using the turbulence effect in After Effects and I’m not entirely convinced by it. Further explorations are needed.
Lady Lazarus 