Jonny Quest update!

[MovieStuff]

Here's another one, guys!

http://www.rogerevans.tv/jq.html

Later, Gator!

Enjoy!

[etimh]

Good stuff.

One question--how do you "slice off" portions of the gator as it enters the water, without distorting or mauling the rest of the clay figure?

Tim

[MovieStuff]

Good stuff.

One question--how do you "slice off" portions of the gator as it enters the water, without distorting or mauling the rest of the clay figure?

I used a wide metal putty knife that I sharpened on a belt sander until it had a razor edge. The gator had no internal armature so it was like a hot knife through butter. The real problem was keeping the mirror clean of smudges from the oil based clay. So what I did was make two different passes with the camera. The first pass was to animate the gator entering the water. I did my best to keep the mirror clean but, after doing the animation, I then cleaned the mirror completely, took the stage back to the beginning position, and then shot the stage going through the same exact rotation without the gator. I used a micro pointer on the edge of the rotating stage to align with pre-marked increments so my repeat move was exactly the same. Then it was a simple matter of just erasing a "hole" in the clean version of the frames with a soft edge Photoshop tool to reveal the gator in the layer below. This also helped keep the surrounding foliage from moving when my hand would brush up against it accidentally. Since the only thing I was using from the shot with the gator was just the gator, none of the surrounding scenery was jostled.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

Okay, after some consideration, I have reworked the gator shot a bit. I reduced the number of ripples in the water, softened them a bit, and also made the frequency more random. I replaced the painted splashes with some real splashes and added a slightly dark vignette over the shot. I think this is better.

http://www.rogerevans.tv/jq.html

Roger