Clay model

Making a clay model isn't particularly easy, especially if you don't have the right clay. I used come cheap clay for kids to try and construct my first first model, but it didn't work out because the quality of the clay was horrible. It just wouldn't mix, nor would it get out of the shape it was bought it. It was too tough on the hand to work with such material so I had to change to a clay form I'm more familiar with.

Polymer clay is this beautiful, soft, easily blending and malleable, but it's most commonly used for making jewellery and can be baked hard. This had both it's positives and negatives.

On the bright side it was very easy to mix with other colours, gentle on the hands of rolls and can easily stick to other parts without having to press on it. Because it has to be baked to turn hard, it would remain soft without air drying like usual clay.

On the other hand, it was too soft so it'd catch finger prints very easily, it would also loose it's shape and flatten very easily went being constantly touched and moved. It also gets softer in a warmer environment so it had to be rather chilly in the room for the clay to not loose it's shape and be malleable at the same time.

Having long nails is also a positive and negative thing for figure making. It's easy to stick parts to the figure without too much trouble and damage, it's also convenient when trying to gently move the figure's arm for example.

However, because it is sharp, the nail more than often leaves a print of some sort, especially if the temperature in the room would increase too much suddenly.

I suppose I should have bought different clay for this, but for experience sake it was much easier to use something I'm very confident with. Because I often make jewellery that has to be flawless before hardening, I had the confidence not to damage the model too much.

It was very much on the difficult side because I'm not used to fiddling with the final model too much and hitting straight for the oven to harden.

I decided giving her facial features as they would be so much more easily drawn on as 2D animated images. It would also be much easier to manipulate than having to change the facial expression along without moving the body every few seconds for the next frame.

I chose the colour green because, looking back to the first questionnaire I did about my theme, people often considered been to be a colour that would disturb them in some way. Colours such as green, burgundy, grey, dark blue, mustard and black make for a very grimy looking animation, especially if they're desaturated and of darker shades. It gives a very good visual effect if the animation is to be disturbing in any sense.

Having a green screen and lighting system in a dark room was a very enjoyable feeling, even if it was at five in the morning. It looked so professional with all the technology surrounding the little figure as I moved it ever so slightly every few seconds.

This contained another struggled I had to face. Because the lighting had to be very strong on the figure and have a very strong light on the background, it would heat with quite a lot and cause the model to skin ever so slight and soften even more than it already was.

Overall, the experience was very enjoyable and kept me excited because I knew that the little insignificant movements would turn into smooth enough animation in the end. I only regret making just one model because it would be convenient to have an identical one incase I needed to animate new scenes. I did however keep the remains of the flattened and cut up model [along with her remains].