Kevin Parry and Tim Burton

I had a super proud teacher moment last week.

Tim Burton has a major show (of his art in general) opening in Toronto. He was in town to promote it.

Kevin Parry graduated from Sheridan's Animation program last year, with his short film The Arctic Circle.

Kevin and his film were selected (along with other student films from around the Toronto area) to show his film to Burton and have a conversation around it.

Burton honestly digs his film, it's really nice to see.

Tim Burton on The Arctic Circle and Stop-Motion Animation from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.

More Exposure For My Zombie Flick

Happy to discover that Canadian Animation Resources has profiled my 30 seconds of zombie-ness.

You can read the wee article (and watch the movie again) here.

"Medium Hard Puppet Making"

Today I did a lecture on "medium hard puppet making".

"Easy puppet making" is taking a bit of epoxy and mixing it with armature wire.

"Medium hard puppet making" is still pretty easy (with practice), doesn't require any power tools, and gives you quite nice results.

"Hard"- cutting your own aluminum armatures (need a few power tools, and quite a bit of precision)

"Silly Hard"- making stainless steel ball-and-socket armatures (good ones). Why bother unless you're planning to be a pro puppet maker? Or are just really into metal work. If you need a ball and socket armature, buy it.

Anyway, here's a few pics of a semi-finished puppet:






And here's two images of the how-to: drawing him to scale, then on another piece of paper "light box" him around his edges, and then use that to draw in your armature of wire and epoxy, and make that armature (always working to scale)...

Movember

The month of November is Prostate Awareness Month, aka Movember.

My friend Mike Weiss made this very appropriate video a few months ago, not specifically for Movember, but it sure works!

Enjoy (and get your prostate checked, if you have one- only you know for sure).

Beardimation from DeliciousNougat on Vimeo.

Fangoria Digs My Film

Super pleased that world-renowned horror magazine Fangoria did a flattering piece on my stop motion zombie film. This magazine (in case you don't know) has been around for years, has been a huge inspiration for countless filmmakers, and is known around the globe.

You can read the piece and watch the film here.

Such great exposure, it's really encouraging for me. It really makes me want to keep working on my own stuff...

Thanks, Fango!