Senior Thesis Progression

These were my first idea/brainstorm sketches in Fall 2011 for Senior Thesis.  I knew I wanted to do something with the Day of the Dead, because I grew up immersed in the Mexican culture.  So here were my first character sketches.

At first I wanted to have the two male dogs to out dance each other, using traditional mexican dances, to win the love of la senorita dog.  I wanted this to be comical and fun to watch, as they try to win her heart before the night is over, when they must go back to their graves.  It was fun making up these characters, even though I changed them later on.  Here are some more of my character sketches:

I then began to build the paper puppets based off of my sketches.

These puppets are about 3 inches in height and have little white brads that serve as joints.  I discovered that it was kind of hard to animate with these puppets, because they were so small, and could only be allowed simple movements.  I was then encouraged to experiment with more puppets, incorporating experimental style, color and characterization.

So, I began experimenting with the colors and elements that I wanted to encorporate into my piece.  These are some color pieces I did with acrylic paints.  I wanted to capture the festive colors of Mexico.

Once I felt looser with the colors, I was more inspired to experiment with the puppets as well.

 I then began to play around with the movements of the puppets, and created experimental animations using the different ones I had made.

After experimenting with the movements and design of the puppets, it was time for me to choose a specific style and I needed a set for the background.  I reflected on what materials I should use, and I realized that key elements to Mexican festivals is paper, paper-mache, paint, metal, and lots and lots of bright colors.

First I worked on the new design of the puppets.  I really enjoyed my first designs, so I expanded on them further.

 

I covered poster board with paper mache, let it dry out and then painted it with a mixed media of guache and acrylic paints.

I also made some decor for the scene, such as graves, flowers and lots and lots of skeleton heads.  I used metal, paint, tissue paper, paper mache, glitter, and paper cut outs.

Next, I finalized my puppet characters. After some more brain storming, I decided to base the dogs on each of my family members.  The pups on the left are of me and my sister, the one in the middle is my dad, and the last one on the right is my mom.  I wanted to do this to make this film more special and personal.  My family is extremely important to me, and I want to capture the silliness and happiness of the moments I spend with them.

                                              
After more testing, I began the final animations in segments using Dragon Stop Motion program.  I timed the music, and put it into the program so I could sync each movement with each beat of the music.  This was a long and tedious process, but I had a lot of fun and pretty much made up the story as I animated.  This is the final result of the animation.

Here is a link to my final animation on Vimeo, enjoy!

                                                              Baile de los Muertos