I Came To Collect My Props

POSTDATED - 02/03/12

Today I went to Celtic Prop Hire again to pick out the props I was going to use for my film so I could get a pricing estimate. Here they are;

 A traitorous, weighty on the wrist dagger

 A lovely spoon for when our swooning lady's gonna slag it up

cast-iron candlebras, like fast flying handlebars, got swagger

Too much goblet and you'll spew much cobbler, sweat and stagger

All for the low price of £56.40 for a one week hire. I'm a hustler baby?

Bzzt.

POSTDATED 01/03/12

Today I started to refine the skull a bit to get a nicer shape. I used a Dremel, and as you can see, I'm pretty excited about using power tools;

I refined the skull shape with a metal grinding accessory to ensure I'd be able to go through the metal supports inside the milliput, if needs be. And needs beed, believe me! OHH YEAHH. Sorry. I'm still kind of excited about power tools.

At this stage the skull had a much nicer shape which, with beads in place for eyes, is starting to be quite expressive already. In fact, you can almost tell what he's thinking in the photo below.

'I pooped in your fridge'

Um.
So yeah, I added some upper back teeth;

I also dremelled the dew claws so they're all pointy and ridgy and just generally badass.

Looking pretty wolf-like now, I reckon.

My My, What Big Teeth You Have

POSTDATED - 29/02/12

Today I did more SKULL-pture. heh heh heh. get it?

 First I added nice big front teeth

 Then some nice big back teeth and mandible, complete with masseteric fossa and coronoid process. I decided to leave off the condyloid process and dentary condyle because they would be hidden from view by fur and foam later on in the building process and in no way am I making this up after a cheeky google. I fully knew all those medical terms the whole time.

 Rarrrgh.

Pretend Skulls and Actual Swords

POSTDATED - 28/02/12

Today I started work on sculpting the wolf skull. To begin with I created a support strut from some KNS and threaded bar, so the top part of the skull would have something to build on top of.

Then I sculpted the front teeth on the bottom jaw, and added a rough base to build the rest of the skull from. I sculpted it up in stages like this because the weight of the soft Milliput meant that if I tried to do too much at once it would sag down by gravity and be the wrong shape by the time it hardened.

Hiya!

I also decided to wait for the bottom jaw's teeth to harden before I sculpted the upper teeth so I could get a perfect fit between the two without them deforming each other while soft.

Also today, I went over the rail tracks to Cardiff Theatrical Services and met Andy John, Head of Props, to see some stage combat swords for use in my film. He kindly offered me a reduced rate with a flexible time schedule, since they were more or less tucked away in a corner of the props department with no intention of being used in the near future anyway...

 

He also said that if we wanted to paint them up, or file away any of the existing paint, that wouldn't be a problem.

Hinge

POSTDATED 27/02/12

Today I started working on the hinge mechanism for the wolf's mouth. First I had to source some materials from Rainbow Bargains.

Using one of these seemed (in)appropriate enough. 

Voila.

The Most Puzzling Of Woods

POSTDATED 26/02/12

This weekend we went location scouting to Puzzlewoods, which is a tourist attraction in the Forest of Dean that used to be a Roman iron mine, creating the rocky formations that look... well, just great. Here is a selection of photos from that initial visit.

  Yep, just great.

Oh yeah. That's some mossy rocky formation action right there.

Here's merlin's house. He won't let us film it though 'cause he'll magic us into something awful. Like a bear with snakes for arms... wait.

Look at me envisioning the heck out of that patch of mud there. What a dick.

 Arron doing a sweet giant wolf impression, to be fair.

 That's a path

And that's a field. Yup.

Armature, Start!

POSTDATED - 24/02/12

Started my armature, combining the legs parts from John Wright with the standard armature kit from Animation Supplies. This involved the usual cutting of threaded bar to the appropriate length,

With our extremely well-equipped 'animation workshop'. Yes, that is the only working saw in the whole room, and yes it's being held together with an impressive combination of pipe cleaners, aluminium wire, masking tape and duct tape. I don't know.

Filing...

Lovely bit of threadlock aaand...

 Shazam. Armature.