Development and construction

Scaling up 

Since I was limited by time/ materials/ space and patience, I built the city set in a smaller scale than what my character would be changing of scales happens quite often in the industry of stop motion, for the mentioned reasons. However since my character will be interacting around the water tower, I have to create a full scale proportional to my characters size. 

 

I've drawn an illustrated diagram for the construction of the water tower body to help visualise the building process. Two supporting disks are used to hold the scored sheet of grey board that forms the outer shell, the cut scoring marks also act like planks, so I keep those in the model. The cone is made from a larger grey board disk, again scored and then cut a notch out so you can fold it into a cone.

Above the explosion diagram to help visualise my design of the support structure of the water tower, we can see each of the indyuvial parts that make up the build. These were made from a combination of a birch wood for the parts that needed to be structurally strong and then balsa wood was used for the irregular sizes of parts since the birch only came in square sections. the design was hot glued together and then miliput was applied to smooth out gaps and make details such as trims and Screen heads. 

    

 Close up of details of support structure base

Here we have the explosion diagram of the lattice strutted arms for the rudder and propellers. The arms are made from grey board strips that have match sticks that diagonally cross over to each side, the opposite direction used grey board strips since they can flex over the match sticks. two fo the lattice structures are glued tother with match stick spaces. I had to add some birch 3.5mm square section timber pieces since the grey board structure wouldn't be very strong. We can also see below the miliput was used to make the support brackets and Screen heads, adding such details adds so much character to the model, but were very time consuming. 

Close ups of the lattice arms 

The rudder was relatively simple to construct, I used a fine corrugated cardboard I separated the card top which exposed this lovely surface that resembles the corrugated iron roofing. I sandwiched two balsa wood plates and drilled a hole, which allowed me to fix the rudder to the arm, it also allows it to turn and positioned for animating. 

From propeller explosion diagram we can see how the propeller is constructed, four holes are drilled through each side, and one down the centre to allow the shaft to be connected. the propeller blades are made from popsicle sticks that have been shaved into wooden boards to resemble floor boards. a shaft is then attached which can be slotted into the four holes. A miliput detail to resemble a rope or a tie down so it looks Asia the shaft is connected to the blade. 

The propellers require precision and time, drilling those four holes too a lot of marking and patience, since if they were off centre, it would wobble when animated.  

Close up of the propeller blades 

 

We can see the complete model of the water tower flying machine, I was extremely happy with how it turned out, I think it stays true to the original design idea and shows how I can develop a concept of an idea and turn it into a physical model. One design chance occurred when building this, I decided not to add the propeller to the front of the water tower, after seeing it physically build, i thought the added propeller would clutter the front of the water tower, not adding it also means not having to animate a third blade, saving time. 

Video of the pre painted water tower model 

It was time to add the primer coat to the model, this primer provides a uniform colour to the model, allowing you to see imperfections and mistakes that you might want to fix or tweak. A primer also adds a base for more paint layers/ weathering and washes and to avoid spots missed.

Similar to underpainting a painting, shadows are added in the form of rust spots with a brown oil colour, the underpainting was applied especially to edges and gaps, as naturally this is where rust would form. The idea of underpainting is that when you apply the top coat, some of the underpants will come through, this layering of the paints adds depth to the paint job, to provide a variation to match a realistic paint job. 

We can see the results of the top coat added and blended with the underpants, the rust peaks through under the surface of the top coat. further weathering was applied in the form of washes, since all things gather dirt in the real world, to simulate that the oil wash technique is used often on model making, this is again to add that realistic variation. The washes are brush on and then almost all wiped away, I leaves a tint of the colour on the surface. a mix of black, brown and yellow is used in this weathering process. 

Close ups of the weathering details.

Building my own rig 

For me to animate the water tower, a rig would be needed to be able to place and hold positions, above is a detailed construction video I made and edited, which goes into detail about the entire process. building my own rigs is another way of displaying my abilities, typically studios purchase such equipment, which can be quite pricy! however developing my own rigs shows my range of skills in the studio space.

 

We can see how the rig hold up the water tower, allowing me to shoot it as if it was flying in the air, I can then easily key out the tower to compose in my animations.