May 1st, 2012
I’ve created a group on fbook called the Animation Frame Report. It’s purpose is to act as a platform for posting the incremental steps animators slave over to create animation. Hopefully animators will find it useful for feedback and inspiration to keep animating. Who else but a fellow animator understands that creating a compelling 24 frames of a movie in a day is quite an accomplishment.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/349049141820135/
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February 10th, 2012
Beebe and his Bathysphere on deck of the Ready
My love for animated gifs has been rekindled! Here is a tiny looping sequence from my current animation project. It features Dr. William Beebe and his diving apparatus, the Bathysphere. Soon we’ll dangle the Bathysphere on a slender steel cable into the black abysmal ocean.
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January 9th, 2012
Here is a test of the wave system I’ve devised for long shots of the tug Ready upon the sea. The waves are cylinders plastered with spiral ridges. When rotated frame by frame the structures take on a screwy wave-like motion, abstracting yet still describing “the motion of the ocean.” The following animated gif loop is a test without lighting or final paint. The ship also needs its second boom attached so it can lift the bathysphere into the briny sea.
Unfinished ocean wave apparatus test.
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January 1st, 2012
This mysterious clip “activates” forthcoming animated sequences. “… And there was darkness on the face of the deep.”
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January 1st, 2012
The former H.M.S. Ready was the vessel used as a platform for the bathysphere descents. Due to the tug’s retrofitting for the bathysphere, another ship, Beebe’s faithful Gladisfen, was called in for towing duty. For the sake of time, yet woe to historical accuracy, I’m eliminating the Gladisfen from the scene and letting the Ready propel itself into action.
This model is actually a bas-relief sculpture. The ship is flat on the back making it ideal for animating the contour diving scene on a layered animation table.
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December 16th, 2011
Dollhouse lighting! I’ve been having trouble lighting the puppets from the inside of the bathysphere set. The discovery of bulbs described as GOW and GOR (grain of wheat and grain of rice) allow for setting up actual 3-point lighting inside small, confined spaces. I hollowed out a plastic toy flashlight and put in a GOR bulb. Puppet Beebe can now illuminate his instruments more realistically.
Thanks to Shelley D. for the lighting tutorial!
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November 23rd, 2011
A coat of ultramarine blue will camouflage my intrusive incursion into the deep. I will slip in undetected and observe what nature hides from the air breathing world. I will be the first man to reach the depths only dead men have reached.
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October 26th, 2011
“She’s birthed of fire and true to your specifications, sir” the engineer said, as a bead of sweat cleaned a streak down his sooty brow.
“If the calculations are true,” said I, “She’ll hold back the entire weight of the ocean.”
“That she will. I guarantee by Hades forge you’ll get to Hell and back. The only weak spot in the plans is your nerve.”
Here we see the rear entry portal of the bathysphere from the inside. The sphere is cast from a basketball. Plasticine was then molded to form detailed protrusions.
The exterior hatch bolts were cast in plaster from mold impressions of a bolt head in plasticine.
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July 7th, 2011
Bathysphere made of clay.
Her sphere is a bit untrue and the windows a bit googly-eyed, but she’s sea worthy. She’s tested for pressures of 2 feet of water or 0.867 pounds per square inch (the depth of my fish tank.) The original bathysphere was a steel ball with three windows (one of which was covered with a steel plug because of leakage problems) of fused quarts. At sea level we experience an atmosphere of 14.7 psi. Seawater depth pressure doubles every 33 feet which means that at 2,200 feet (its deepest dive) the bathysphere must withstand a depth pressure of 3222.06 pounds per square inch. Imagine an elephant and several comically large anvils standing on your little toe, but that pressure all over the surface of your body. Squish.
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June 7th, 2011
It has come to my attention that my animated Western Red Rider’s Lament is currently ranked as the #2 least popular Western of 2011 thus far. Yay me! My pal Jason H. has the #6 least popular Western, Agnes and Me.
Sucking Out Loud
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Animation Frame Report
