I'm Back

Hey gang!

Yep. You're part of the gang. The people-who-read-Daria's-silly-blog-posts gang.

So last week I fell sick, unfortunately, and didn't get as much work done as I wanted to. Though I did get a bit of work done, I decided to count it as my spring break, and I shall go over the things I did last week and this week right now!

First off, some productive procrastination based on your answers to my questions last post about favorite colors and odd hobbies:

~Sophia~
Fave color: Royal colors (...I tried red, it came out kinda orange...)
Odd hobby: Collecting receipts

~Tia~
Fave color: Blue
Odd hobby: Book pressing flowers

~Megan~
Fave color: Light blue
Odd hobby: Ordering physical copies of photographs

~Pranav~
Fave color: White
Odd hobby: Collecting coins

And then some other pieces I did:

I bought new watercolors this week
and took the liberty of painting
my hand...

And I painted these colorful peeps!

Alrighty, onto my project.

The first week, when I got sick, my mentors were kind enough to lend me their light table.

Ze la-eet tay-buhl

Here's a video of me tracing over a frame to make a new frame:

And here's how my bed looked after a while:

Beautiful, right?

However, I then met with my mentors Sunday of that week, and we decided that doing a hand-drawn animation was definitely going to take too long. If I wanted to finish the whole animation, paper animation might be a better choice.

Which is why I have to inform you all that I am switching over to a paper animation stop motion.

So that night I doodled a bit for concepts of how my characters would look:

Needless to say, I did not go with the circular one.

And then I started cutting out things:

It's a pile of limbs and torso and such.
Pretty morbid stuff.

But... how the heck was I gonna keep these pieces together, let alone have them move?

Michaels would have the answer!

Mmmm pretty paint...

No! Can't get distracted. Gotta keep going.

And then... I found them.

In English they're called Brads.
In French they're called Parisian attachments.
In Spanish they're called German attachments.
Where are they from? 

Mini brads. 

So many mini brads.

I proceeded to assemble the puppet and to experiment a bit with movement: 

I might've also messed around a teeny bit with the brads:

Anyhow, after that was all settled I started making more puppets and painting them with watercolors! 

I was originally going to go black and white with my drawn
animation but with paper I decided I'd add a lil color.

I'm going to be starting the film as soon as possible. I just need to figure out what I'm going to do for the facial expressions (switch out faces, maybe?) and then I'm set!

I'd also like to mention as a side note that animation has made me less fearful of critters. I was at Starbucks the other day, someone opened the door to the front of the store, whoosh, plop, there was a bug on my table. 

Instead of being horrified, I whipped out my phone and... filmed it... for future reference... for animation purposes... 

ANYHOW. 

I'm not weird. 

Questions. 

Yes I am.

1. If you were writing a post-apocalyptic novel, who would your protagonist be? Give a description, including physical traits as well as their overall demeanor/attitude towards life (are they confident, shy, nervous, paranoid, etc.). Feel free to defy stereotypes of what a post-apocalyptic novel protagonist should be if you so please!
2. Where is somewhere that you've never been that you really wish you could visit? 

Finally, here's an adorable lil animation from students at Ringling College of Art and Design:

And here's a bit of a longer one from students at the School of Visual Arts: 

That's it for today! 

Thank you for bearing with me and I hope you're having a shwankin' time.