Title Sequence

Here is the title sequence that those sculptures were for.

And here's the link if the embedded doesn't work:

http://vimeo.com/9846972

Western Title Sequence from Matt Christensen on Vimeo.

Sculpting! or Holy Shit, this blog still exists

Howdy ya'll,

Remember me? Yeah, we had some times. So I've pretty much finished the animation that I started this blog for and have started back up on another animation that I started a year ago! Been working constantly.

And, for something completely different, here is some sculptures I've made for an assignment. I'm really loving sculpting, I need to get me a good set of tools and some good clay. Now my set of tools include one wooden sculpting knife of some kind, an exacto knife, pencils and pens, and my FAVORITE sculpting tool: TOOTHPICKS!

I've used toothpicks to sculpt every single mouth position in all of my animated films, they're beautiful. I'd like to thank toothpicks right now.......... Thank you. (I really do love them)

Great music in Detroit

This has almost nothing to do with me. My brother and his fellow Detroit music and art collective had a right up in the Metro Times. Gotta show it everywhere I can:

http://www.metrotimes.com/music/story.asp?id=14747

Props!

So, it's been a very long time since I've posted. When I created the blog I thought that maybe I'd post the whole way through, about how I animated and everything. But that seemed weird for some reason. I don't know what to say about actually animating other than techniques that one would learn in any animation class; slow in, slow out, arcs, expression, all dat.

So here are some props I've made. I'm really happy with the tombstone, it's cool. I'm very nearly done, after today I'll only have 3 shots left to animate. I need to build quite a bit for them still, but that's totally awesome!

Television set. Made from posterboard, balsa wood, paint, christmas lights, 9volt, paper clips

Gravestone made from balsa wood, gray wash paint

This is for a close up shot of my head, the brain looked cooler before it was all mushed together.
It's a fucking pillow. What do you want?!?

As, I've told some people, I'm shooting the film in my apartment. That's my bed underneath my table. I have the push it up against the wall when I want to animate. I like it because it'll be a great thing to reminisce about when I'm older.

So, I can do a post about the actual animation, it'll be a while though. Would anyone be interested in that? (Really, I'm just curious to see if anyone I don't know has actually read this, that'd be cool.)

My Vimeo Page

I realized I never posted my vimeo page. Watch some if ya feel like it. My reel is a bit out of date.

http://vimeo.com/user1702698

Bakshi Interview

Cartoon Brew already linked this but everything Ralph Bakshi has to say is great. I've yet to not be inspired by things he has to say.

http://fullecirclestuff.blogspot.com/2009/11/conversation-with-ralph-bakshi.html

Molding Materials pt 2

The other day I helped my friend make a bunch of body parts for her film. Rob Benevides showed us all how to do this. Here's a short list of materials:

Royal Jel-E – Silicone releasing agent, used for casting silicone in a silicone mold. Brush on and then dry with a hair dryer. It's water soluble, which is good because it washes off the cast easier so you can paint it.
Body Double- Silicone molding material. Mix two parts by volume. Paint on skin layer then glob on. We used it for body parts.
Plaster Bandages- After putting on the body double, put plaster bandages on after the silicone or whatever mold making material. This makes a hard shell for the mold.
Platsil Gel – 10 – Silicone casting material- flesh like casting material. Two part mixture by volume. To pigment, put pigment in one half, then mix second half to pigmented half.
Tincure Green Soap- releasing agent for plaster bandages. This is for doing a two part plaster bandage shell.
Flocking- pulverized felt for use in pigmentation of silicone
Alja- safe- algenate used for one time molding. Put a plaster bandage shell for support. Mix powder with water.
Dental Algenate- mouth safe algenate. We used this to try to make a mold of my tounge. A few things didn't work so we sculpted and molding a sculpted tongue.