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For the stop motion movies that Josh Kitchens and myself have created, we often design our own characters. These figures are later placed in our rooms, and always pose a threat to us should they become animated by evil spirits and choose to attack us. My cat also likes to chew on them. Below is the evolutionary ladder of how these figures have taken on new characteristics over the past decade.
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For our stop motion videos, original characters have always been designed by Josh and myself. These original creations were used in conjunction with pre-made figures, such as GI Joes, ALIENS figures, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It should be noted, however, that "original creation" does not necessarily mean "quality creation," as can be seen with the zombies from the movie Residential Evilness (1997). |
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For the next few years, Josh and I continued to work on stop motion projects; while my movies focused more on the nostalgia factor with the use of 80's toys, Josh began to experiment with new types of figure designs for his project, The Fifth Horseman (2001). The human figures now had bodies that were a mix of clay, Model Magic, wood and wire armatures, and acrylic paint. Robots were constructed out of "random bits of junk," including wood, wire, pen tops, and disposable razor covers and handles. |
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Following the "advances" made by Josh with The Fifth Horseman, the characters began to develop more of a backbone (literally). I guess, for that matter, they also began to develop other parts of the skeletal system. Human armatures for The Good Doctor (2002) were a little more solid, and the bodies now were comprised totally of Model Magic (with the exception of a few characters' boots, which were made from Sculpey). Again, clothing was made for the characters, as well as body armor (made from Model Magic); weapons were made from pen tops, razor covers, dowel rods, Sculpey, and broken CD's, and many other pieces of junk we could find. |
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The robots for The Good Doctor shared much in common with their ancestors in The Fifth Horseman. By much in common, I mean that, well, they were also made out of "junk" parts (are you seeing a theme here with the use of junk?). For example, the medical/surgical robot (appropriately called "Medical Bot") was made from an F-16 model fuselage (upper body), Model Magic (the head and shoulder pad), dowel rods (arms and legs), and empty film canisters (calves/"feet"). To finish things off, a shard from a broken cd was used for his surgical blade |
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In between The Good Doctor and Mneumonic Devices, Josh and I had intentions to work on a medieval stop-motion movie. However, things didn't pan out quite the way we planned, and this idea was scrapped. We still made several of these figures, but the movie was canned. These figures had some improvements over their predecessors; the most significant of this was the average size of the human characters. They were built to a 12" scale (as opposed to the 9" humans of TGD), which allowed for much better clothing, more poseability, and the ability to make much larger weapons (such as halberds and pikes). Additional joints were also added.. |
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Mneumonic Devices was our most recent (and for now, last) stop-motion production. Taking what we had learned from making the medieval figures, we were able to create much more animation friendly characters. They were larger, more poseable, and more detailed. So far, these characters have been the pinnacle of our stop-motion creations; although we have created characters that are much more detailed (such as "Brit Bot"), MD's figures were the most versatile for stop motion, although they still lacked the ideal joints constructed from ball-bearings. |
For additional pictures of figures, check out the freak show.