The Fisherman´s Hut: Mock up set design and elaboration process, PART 1.
After working very hard I am proud to share with you this personal project. In my first post I talked about the process of elaboration of The Sailor and The Seagull puppet so in this post, divided in two parts, I will show almost all the steps that I took to create a set for stop motion movies. In this case the set is a part of the house of this puppet or character.
Also I will write more posts, where I will explain how a reach the final design of the character and the set, like first ideas, research, sketches and final illustration or concept illustration.
1. Defining the Scale: The common thing to do would be to use the same scale that is used for stop motion animation movies 1:6, but this would pose several problems and I had to take into account several aspects such as the lack of space, the fact that I share a flat with another person, and that I might change location from one city or country to another. Therefore, it required for the project to be at a smaller scale, light and detachable into different pieces so that it can easily be carried from one place to another. In the end I chose to go with a scale of 1:10 which is a little bit bigger than the 1:12 scale used to build a dollhouse.
2. Defining the techniques: The ground and walls of this set would be made of wood, in order to build them I had to find an appropriate technique to be used. At the beginning I thought of using strips of wood, but then I realized that it would become harder to give it the style and look of grey weathered wood that would look natural from the wearing effect caused by the sea. Then I thought of using a structure made of foam board and apply a thin layer of clay to shape it the way I wanted to and give it the appropriate texture look, similar to the effect I found in the following link which showcases the work done by David Wright: https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=qZ7tjFvS2OA
3. Designing the basic structure of the stage with the aim for it to be detachable so it can be stored it in a safe place.
4. Passing the design to the foam board for later cut.
5. Mimic the wood effect with the technique described on David Neat’s blog. Peel off one of the cardboard layers from the foamboard, applying heat with a hairdryer. Brush the exposed surface with the metal brush, the one used for shoes. Mark with a cutter the different floor boards and walls. Doing color tests. Apply the first coat of light grey. Apply a second layer of white color. Bringing in moisture details and the rust effect on the nails on a third layer.
I made the ceiling with metal from containers of prepared food. I cut them into pieces and then painted on top with different colors using acrylics. Afterwards, I glued them to the foamboard.
The column in the corner was made of a cardboard roll and then I wound around a rope with a rustic appearance that I later painted with acrylics to give it a worn effect.
The beam that is used to support the hanging nets in the ceiling is made of a piece of balsa wood and acrylic paint.
Once the beam has been placed, I created a wired structure to then place the nets that will contain different objects inside.
If you want to know how I made the props for the set, check the second part of this post . I hope you like all what I share with you. Thanks!!
After working very hard I am proud to share with you this personal project. In my first post I talked about the process of elaboration of The Sailor and The Seagull puppet so in this post, divided in two parts, I will show almost all the steps that I took to create a set for stop motion movies. In this case the set is a part of the house of this puppet or character.
Also I will write more posts, where I will explain how a reach the final design of the character and the set, like first ideas, research, sketches and final illustration or concept illustration.
1. Defining the Scale: The common thing to do would be to use the same scale that is used for stop motion animation movies 1:6, but this would pose several problems and I had to take into account several aspects such as the lack of space, the fact that I share a flat with another person, and that I might change location from one city or country to another. Therefore, it required for the project to be at a smaller scale, light and detachable into different pieces so that it can easily be carried from one place to another. In the end I chose to go with a scale of 1:10 which is a little bit bigger than the 1:12 scale used to build a dollhouse.
2. Defining the techniques: The ground and walls of this set would be made of wood, in order to build them I had to find an appropriate technique to be used. At the beginning I thought of using strips of wood, but then I realized that it would become harder to give it the style and look of grey weathered wood that would look natural from the wearing effect caused by the sea. Then I thought of using a structure made of foam board and apply a thin layer of clay to shape it the way I wanted to and give it the appropriate texture look, similar to the effect I found in the following link which showcases the work done by David Wright: https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=qZ7tjFvS2OA
I finally ended up on the blog of David Neat where I could find a great amount of sources of information to build sets. Thanks to his work I was able to apply one of his techniques to my set, as you can see on the following link:
https://davidneat.wordpress.com/materials/surfacing/using-standard-black-foamboard/
3. Designing the basic structure of the stage with the aim for it to be detachable so it can be stored it in a safe place.
4. Passing the design to the foam board for later cut.
5. Mimic the wood effect with the technique described on David Neat’s blog. Peel off one of the cardboard layers from the foamboard, applying heat with a hairdryer. Brush the exposed surface with the metal brush, the one used for shoes. Mark with a cutter the different floor boards and walls. Doing color tests. Apply the first coat of light grey. Apply a second layer of white color. Bringing in moisture details and the rust effect on the nails on a third layer.
I made the ceiling with metal from containers of prepared food. I cut them into pieces and then painted on top with different colors using acrylics. Afterwards, I glued them to the foamboard.
The column in the corner was made of a cardboard roll and then I wound around a rope with a rustic appearance that I later painted with acrylics to give it a worn effect.
The beam that is used to support the hanging nets in the ceiling is made of a piece of balsa wood and acrylic paint.
Once the beam has been placed, I created a wired structure to then place the nets that will contain different objects inside.
If you want to know how I made the props for the set, check the second part of this post
. I hope you like all what I share with you. Thanks!!