When brainstorming how best to build our characters, I drew inspiration from one of my favourite childhood toys… the Pink Panther. Many of you may be familiar with this type of bendy rubber toy which allows you to pose the character into any position and it retains its shape. This was due to what lay at its core, a wire armature.

Traditionally, an armature is a framework around which a sculpture is built. This framework provides structure and stability, especially when material such as clay is being used as the medium. When sculpting a figure, the armature is analogous to the skeleton and has essentially the same purpose: to hold the body erect. An example of this can be seen in my previous post on Sculpting Prototypes, however the armatures used in our final puppets served a different purpose… to bring our characters to life!

We used a special wire made specifically for stop motion animation designed to bend back and forth hundreds of times before breaking point. It comes in various thicknesses and can be purchased from speciality hobby shops such as Barnes.

As with all our phases of pre-production, we performed numerous tests and discovered through trial and error the best approach for building our armatures. In our case, a body could be made up of 3 pieces of wire. One for the left arm and leg, another for the right arm and leg and the third for the neck and spine.

They were glued together with quick drying super glue, then tied at the chest and hips with regular wire. The arms were bent at the ends to create round edges. This helps avoid the pointy wire from popping out of the arm whilst animating.

Next we applied a great product called Knead-It to the chest and hips ensuring the connecting joints were all stuck together tightly. We also added some to the end of the arms to give them a little more body and to the feet to secure the nuts in place (more on this below). This product is a two-part epoxy that has a working time of 3 – 5 minutes once mixed and dries like concrete 10 minutes later. After an hour, it can even be sanded, drilled, machined, filed, sawed or painted. You simply mix it together in your hands (gloves recommended) and it has the consistency of BluTack. We used it everywhere during our production.

The photo below also shows an alternative approach to creating armatures. In this example the arms and legs were made from two pieces of wire wrapped around each other. This actually gives the armature more strength and may allow you to keep animating if one of the wires should break mid shot. For our purposes however, I found that because the whole puppet was then set in silicon, the tension became two high and I was unable to gain the same level of minute movements I could get from a single wire. Doubling the amount of wire also doubled the expense.

The feet were the most technically challenging part of the armature as they needed to include ‘tie-downs’. A tie-down is the mechanism used to fasten your puppet’s feet to the set allowing them to stand upright and stay securely in place. The most common practice is to use nuts and bolts, an examples of which can be seen in this post.

We created wire loops for the feet and super glued nuts on top. This meant that when the bolt passed through the bottom of the set and into the nut, it would pull the wire loop between them down. Knead-it was then used to keep the whole rig secure.

In some instances, we also experimented with making the wire loop up and over the nut. This was by far the most secure method to ensure the nut didn’t break free, but was a bit bulky and hard to set within our puppet. We ended up sticking with basic loops at the bottom.

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of building your own armature, you can purchase them ready made. Some are available as wire like ours, but you may opt for a more durable (and expensive) ‘ball and socket‘ joint armature. The only problem is you generally have to base your character around these predefined shapes and sizes.

Once our armature was complete, we then had to place them in the molds we made earlier. We needed to find a way to suspend the armature exactly half way between both sides of the mold so it set in the middle of the puppet once we poured the silicone. For this, I placed some wire in the grooves I had previously set in the mold and balanced the armature on these. This allowed for it to be propped up off one side of the mold. In order to ensure the armature stayed perfectly in place once I closed both sides of the mold, I stuck it to the wire in the grooves with super glue. The wire was easily removed later on by yanking it free with pliers. The process wasn’t perfect and sometimes resulted in crookedly set armatures with wires protruding from limbs, but overall, we managed to get the job done.

The next step was to close the mold and pour in the silicone to create the final cast, which I’ll write about in my next post. If you have any questions about the above process, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

With the prototypes set in stone, or rather, clay… we had to make molds of each character which would allow us to produce multiple casts of each body shape. We learnt a lot during this process and evolved our technique over time.

To get started, we built a basic bed of clay around the model so it was submerged half way. A cylinder was placed on the characters neck which breached the edge of the base. This would serve as the hole that would later allow us to pour  silicon through.

Using the end of a marker, we pushed 4 holes into the clay which acted as ‘keys. This would eventually allow the two sides of the finished mold to lock together so they couldn’t rotate. Wires were also placed protruding out from each limb which would create channels for us to place our armature wire into (more on this in a future post).

Four walls of clay were built around the base creating a basic box. We smoothed it down onto the table so the whole thing stayed firmly in place and the plaster we were about to pour couldn’t escape out the bottom.

The model and clay were then painted in Vaseline. This would act as a release agent that would ensure the plaster would easily pull free once dry. You can purchase release agents in spray form, but Vaseline (or petroleum jelly) is cheap and does just as good a job.

Plaster of Paris was then mixed up, ready to pour. I’d advise you you ignore the ratio instructions on the packet as this makes your consistency too runny which results in slower drying times and a weaker mold. Simply add your water to a container and start pouring in your plaster bit-by-bit, stirring it through. Your goal is to create a consistency similar to that of soft serve ice cream.

As the plaster is drying, you’ll feel it warm up. You’ll know you’re ready to move on when it becomes cool to touch, at this point peel away the clay and the first half of the mold is complete.

Repeat your earlier step by rebuilding walls around the mold in order to pour the second half. Don’t forget to add your release agent… then pour away.

The photo below shows two halves of a finished mold, the model itself, didn’t fair so well. This isn’t the same mould as seen above and serves as a good example of what happens to your model if you don’t apply a release agent!

Earlier in the post I mentioned our technique improved over time. Besides gaining a better understanding of the right ratio for mixing the plaster, a big time saver came in the use of using found containers as the base for our molds. In the photos below, I used an ice cream container and a cardboard box. The cardboard box was a bit radical but at the time, I didn’t have anything big enough on hand to fit my model. I’d recommend sticking to plastic containers.

The use of found containers literally saved us hours of time, but the process was slightly different. Instead of building up a bed of clay around the character, we filled up the container half way with the plaster, then submerged the model half way. It won’t sink to the bottom if your consistency is thick enough (like soft serve ice cream as mentioned earlier).

When it dries, simply apply your release agent and pour in the second half. Quick and easy! Feel free to ask questions about this process in the comments below.

With the character illustrations locked down and a clear direction set, it was time to get our hands dirty. David Cox was tasked with the job of turning what he drew on paper into clay sculptures.

Before picking up his sculpting tools, David created a basic wire armature in the size and shape of the character he intended to sculpt. This served as a foundation for him to build the model on, which would act as a guide and give it strength. He secured the armature to the lid of a pill bottle using a hot glue gun, and further bonded the various joints of the armature for strength.

When the glue had dried (which doesn’t take very long with hot glue), David prepared the clay. His preferred choice is Roma Plasticine. Unlike common clays, the plasticine doesn’t dry out allowing you to come back and work on it at a later date. You don’t even need to cover it with damp cloth when you leave it for a period of time.

It comes in various levels of hardness of which David’s favourite was hard. I’d recommend beginners start with soft or medium as it can be tough on your fingers over time… David is hardcore.

Quick tip: If you’re working with Roma Plasticine in colder conditions, it starts out quite hard. Depending on the level of hardness you selected, you can either warm it up in your hands by kneading it, or pop it in the oven on some foil for 10 minutes on medium. Keep an eye on it though, you don’t want to burn it and stink out your kitchen.

For sculpting, David has a collection of standard sculpting tools you can pick up from an arts and crafts store, but he prefers to use his dental tools as they’re built using better materials, feel more comfortable in your hands, and have nice hooks on the end for carving.

After several days and multiple revisions, we settled on the basic body shapes seen below. We ended up using foam balls for heads to save clay.

Now that all the character body shapes had been modeled, it was time to move on to the next stage and create molds for each figure. If you have any questions about the process, feel free to leave them in the comments. If you’re interested in learning more about sculpting, head over to stopmotionanimation.com for some great tutorials.

The Zero trailer is now available. Please watch, share and comment over on the trailer page.

Before writing Zero, I work shopped character concepts with Brett Bimson our production designer. We discussed the varying physical attributes of our characters and the look and feel of the environment they inhabit.

Once the story was locked down, we had the fun task of bringing the world to life with illustration. I started off by briefing the multi-talented David Cox who was our sculptor/modeller/painter/animator and illustrator. He got to work and sketched these preliminary concepts:

Next, we defined the difference between what a zero numbered character should look like compared to their higher numbered counterparts, these were the results:

Now that the body shapes were defined, we wanted to get a feel for how the higher numbered characters looked in comparison to each other. As this world was based on a class system, the higher numbers had to look cleaner and more orderly than the lower numbers. We imagined 9’s may be royalty, 8’s as politicians, 7’s would be military and so on till we got to 1’s who were lowly street sweepers.

It was decided that the wool wrapping on the higher numbers would be very neat, but would degrade as you went down the ladder. 1’s were wrapped just a poorly as zero’s but had the benefit of being fully formed.

The next task at hand was designing a body shape for the ’she-zero’ and higher numbered female characters. Early sketches of females weren’t really fitting the bill. An example of this can be seen in the character sketches above of the number 4 sitting at the bar. The breasts just looked… weird. I decided to sketch some body shapes and we settled on the following:

The result was a skirt-shaped base similar to that of ‘Lisa Simpson’. Giving them female hair styles further assisted in distinguishing them as feminine characters.

With the character body shapes now established, we were ready to move on to the next step of production… sculpting the characters out of clay.

This title aptly serves as both our film’s tag line and encapsulates our journey in the making of our stop motion animated short called Zero.

After two years of production, we recently held a private screening so our crew, family and friends could watch the finished film. It was a fitting way to mark the end of a long and gruelling production.

The private screening was held at the AFTRS on Thursday 23rd April 2009 and by all accounts was a huge success. The audience comprised of the crew, family and friends who seemed to have only positive things to report. I would normally chalk this up to politeness, however our most honest and harshest critics gave it a green light.

Now that the film is complete, we’re embarking on the film festival gauntlet which will be a two year campaign. This blog will keep you posted of any successes we may encounter and serve as an excellent opportunity to take a retrospective look at the making of Zero.

From concept through to design, the shoot and post production… I hope to share tips, tricks and tutorials for those interested in starting their own stop motion, or just keen to take a sneak peek behind the scenes.

Christopher Kezelos
Director