Ramshackle

Judith's beautifully crafted doll heads

During the summer holidays I came across an opportunity to work on a stop motion annimation called 'Fixing Lika', produced by Anna Odell and written/directed by Jessica Ashman at Digicult





When I first met Anna she gave me a brief description of the project. The story was about a little girl struggling to cope with her brothers autism.
The puppets were all fully armatured - the parts from this online shop
Beautifully made by Judith Johnston - a professional prop and model maker.
After only a few minutes I knew I was to be part of a really fascinating and special project.

I was asked to make a shack 28cm high, 18cm length and 18cm width. It had to have a front door and its design was to be in keeping with the Ramshackle pallet - rusty, mouldy and downtrodden.
I was given some balsa wood of varying sizes and thickness' - so off I went.

I have just realised a pattern in my approach to making things. When I first get any project,  a tiny little bit of panicking ensues, just before I start and I realise now it's me setting myself a high standard and worrying about whether I'll be able to make as good as I dream - probably like nerves for an actor. Am also starting to see that there's no need for this worry - things ALWAYS work out the way I want them to. Funny isn't it.

Being at the Academy is paying of...
As I planned the making of the shack I was thinking of all the steps involved and what Jess, as an annimator would need. She would have to get inside in order to manipulate the puppet through the door. So I needed to incorporate a removable wall. Only 2 of the walls would be in shot, so I only needed to decorate 2 sides and could leave the other with a removable section.

I glued the wood together to make a sheet - 
When I was asking my initial questions about sizes - noone was entirely sure about the door size, so I made the door in a rough proportion to the wall. I should have at this point, taken the model to the director and checked with her that the puppet would fit. You live and learn!


With the basic frame made it was time for the fun part - the decoration.


I basecoated all the wood with PVA glue, water + base colour. Since everything was going to be dark and mouldy I used a dark green.
The shack walls were just strips of balsa which i carved and sanded at the edges to look like weathered planks. I painted these with a series of washes. I wanted each plank to have it's own individuality.

While I was waiting on the planks drying, I started thinking about the roof. I wasn't given any specifics - it was suggested I use black sandpaper and paint it for that mineral felt look.
I had an idea for a corrugated roof so I started collecting images - googling 'rusty corrugated shack roofs'. Got some nice reference which gave me an idea how to get the paint finish I wanted. I spent a little time trying out different colour layers til I got the effect I wanted.
I am a horder of anything I think could be useful for future makes so I had plenty of cardboard lying around my store. Spritzing the top layer of cardboard allows you to just lift it off leaving the corrugated section.
I primed all the cardboard with PVA glue, cause I wanted it to be tough. Jess might be throwing it about on set for all I know - I didn't want to give her something that'd fall apart :P

 I put a red/rust colour on first then put a darkblue/purple colour in all the areas I thought would have retained the original aluminium (the areas less effected by weather) then ran a silver wash over that to weather it a little. Then cut the card and peeled back the edges for that tarnished/rusted metal effect. I touched up the areas with least weathering with silver and used a bronze/rust/gold colour to finish off the metal rusted areas.

Overall - the success of this piece was due to the amazing visual references I found. I realise now this is probably one of the most important factors on a make, having good references.

 Once the roof was all painted and glued into place - the planks were all fitted onto the walls and everything started coming together. I added a few rusty nail holes on the planks and ran a bit of moss green colour up from the bottom .Unfortunately when I took the shack in for a meeting with the director Jess, we discovered the door was too small for the girl puppet to crawl through. So we decided on a new size and I remade the door.
This whole project was just another learning curve for me. I discovered whilst doing it that I was automatically planning and looking ahead as I went. Making the best of my time by fitting in jobs whilst waiting on paint drying/glue heating etc. Looking forward to see if there would be any problems I could fix before they happened. For instance I asked Jess if she would be using the handle on the door and she said yes - so instead of just gluing it on I ran a wire into the milliput when I was shaping it and fed it right through the door. It meant it wouldn't come off and cause problems on set.
I think learning to ask the right questions is half the battle.

Am really pleased with the end result. It 

was a great learning experience and even better it was liked by the people who asked me to make it.

Following the success of the shack make - I was asked to makes some furniture for the room - 2 tables and a standard lamp. The tables were fairly easy to carve out of the balsa and apply a weathered/ wood grain effect

It was the lampshade on the standard lamp that proved to be quite the challenge. I had a little bulb that had to be connected to a power pack as the lamp would have to work. So I made a frame from balsa wood and attempted to stretch the material onto the frame.

well that didn't quite work out. The balsa just snapped under pressure. So I remade the frame this time with aluminium wire. 

The material just didn't want to stretch in the right places. 

Then it occured to me to make a pattern for the material and a base coat that was a bit more rigid.

so.. using grease proof paper I attached the material onto the paper and this time it worked!

I added a little trim to the bottom using embroidery thread on double sided tape and ran a little wire through the middle so it could be shaped.

As always - if you try hard enough, you get there in the end.

I actually stuck up maglight up the lampshade and it looked pretty good when the light was on!!!

Up to now I haven't had a great deal of experience model making, but after this project I feel I would actually like to do more! I really love stop motion annimation and is something I would look to get involved with in the future. this particular project had so many skilled people working on it, it was a blessing to be part of it.

I also got the opportunity to help out with a little set dressing and to witness some of the consideration when building set for stop motion.

Here's a link to some production stills taken to remember the journey.

I can't wait to see the finished product!