I Feel the Need to Feed

Come and get it! (Ethel and the vegetarian lion.)

Animal, Dance!!!

If I have time (which I surely will not), I will animate a walking elephant in the background. But as I just pointed out, I won't have time. So please, imagine an uber-cute ginormous elephant... stomping in the background. This scene would be that much better...

And just in case anyone's curious, my "ingredient" list:
1) Cages. I wanted the zoo to look more "Madeleine" and less "San Diego". Bought inexpensive bird cages from Michaels. They were originally painted an antique-white (which I actually liked), but I ultimately spray-painted the heck out of them. Lined the cages with actual dirt.
2) Bushes. Composed of clumps of "Clump-Foliage" that model-train connoisseurs utilize. Love the stuff.
3) Cage at back. I glued aluminum bars onto cut pieces of textured paper (originally a shopping bag from Cusp).
4) Sam (the toucan) and Seymour (the chimp) are composed of floral wire, tape, and Sculpy.

Saved

With the help of my advisor, the brilliant (and helpful) Ashley Hoffman, I've learned that I can key out the blue (er, purple) screen! Here's a still from the zoo gate scene with a temp background. Amazing, no?

Whew. I was afraid I was going to have reshoot the scene due to my improperly-lit blue screen. Thank you so much, Ashley, for salvaging an otherwise failed-shoot. I promise to pay more attention to lighting in shoots to follow!

Home Sweet Home

Seymour is a homebody.

Dear God

Dear God, it's me, Debra.

Gravity causing my armatures to topple is caca.
Hot lights that heat up my garage are caca.
Hot glue guns that scorch my fingers are caca.

I'm having a bad animation day. A little help from you, or the Universe, for that matter, would be nice.

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!! *me pulling out my eyelashes* (I do that when I'm stressed.)

Leafy Greens

Tah-dah! Foliage test. The "trees" (fern leaves I pierced into tall styrofoam cone things) and bushes still need a little help, but ooh-lah-lah... GREEN! Shot under poor lighting-conditions (only my garage bulb) and without a blue-screen behind the set (am waiting for the cloth's arrival), this piece of the set is nearly-finished. Woo-hoo! Now onto the zoo interior! Yup, the work is never finished.

Come and Knock on Our Door

"We'll be waiting for you..."
Gate finished! Now for some foliage...

Gentle Giant

My veggie lovin' lion. He could use a puff of hair on his tail and possibly some brows. Test brows in shot below. Enclosure still in the works.

Rock You

After napping for four hours, I carved rock work out of foam. They're for the lion enclosure :)

Feels Good

That hit by Tony! Toni! Tone! croons through my head as I post this image because it just feels so damn good to be working on my film again. (Last quarter was a whirlwind.) My deadline remains May 28th. It's non-negotiable, and there's no friggin' time to waste. I'm on it.

I'm currently working on building the zoo set. I posted photos of the work-in-progress gate a while back. See HERE. And as of tonight, I've got the sign that goes above it! See photo above.

Also being worked on is the enclosure for the vegetarian lion :)

There's an Elephant in the Room

For the zoo.

Knock-Knock

Improvements to the gate. You likee? Beans likee. Those are his stinky feet.

Come and Knock On My Door

Trying to construct a gate for my zoo scene. Opted to forgo wired gates (in order to avoid wire-cutting-related injuries). Instead, I've gone for painted cardboard. It took forever to carve out the gate! Still a work-in-progress... Next up, the "ZOO" sign and brick columns...