Cottage Ivy...
The initial sketch of the Cottage Exterior featured a little shading to suggest that there was Ivy growing over the side wall and creeping round to the front of the cottage. I had a spare couple of hours last night, so I decided to get that done.
I had a whole load of Seafoam off-cuts from making the bushes. These offcuts weren't going to be of much use in making trees as they were odd shapes, too small or broken in important places. But I realised that I could certainly use them to make the Ivy.
The first thing I did was strip a load of the off-cuts down, removing their little branches and the tiny twigs which make up it's branching form. This left me with a lot of stalks.
I then set about gluing these to the cottage wall in branching formations, as if the Ivy was climbing up the side wall and around to the front. I used the thicker pieces near the bottom and thinned them out as they got to the distance I wanted them. I also tried to make sure they branches in a fairly believeable way.
So, then I had a bunch of fluffy remains. This was made up of all the little twigs I'd removed from the main stalks. These still had tiny branching forms on them, and would work perfectly for giving the Ivy the body required.
So, I teased out small pieces, flattened them down, and proceeded to glue them onto the main stalks on the cottage wall. I'm really happy with how this turned out. I should point out that I couldn't simply flatten a full piece of Seafoam and attach it directly to the wall; The result would have been too haphazard and unrealistic, because Ivy behaves in a certain way. Doing it this way, adding the elements seperately gives me far more control over the structure of the plant.
The last thing needed to complete the effect would be the leaves. I picked up this amazing product called Ivy Leaf Scatter. It is amazing as the tiny leaves actually look like Ivy leaves. It's hard for me to tell what they are made of, but Kjestine reckons they are some kind of seed! Anyway, this works much the same as the bush/tree building; You put on some tacky scatter glue in patches...
...And then drop on the leaf scatter. The leaves stick to the glue and nothing else, giving a realistic effect (leaves don't grow on branches, only on extremities - This process mimics that really well). You then tap off the excess leaf scatter. I repeated this process (dropping leaf scatter on, and tapping off the excess) about three times for each patch of scatter glue, to ensure the glue was fully covered with leaves.
So, here is the Ivy crawling up the side and round to the front of the cottage...
I had a whole load of Seafoam off-cuts from making the bushes. These offcuts weren't going to be of much use in making trees as they were odd shapes, too small or broken in important places. But I realised that I could certainly use them to make the Ivy.
The first thing I did was strip a load of the off-cuts down, removing their little branches and the tiny twigs which make up it's branching form. This left me with a lot of stalks.
I then set about gluing these to the cottage wall in branching formations, as if the Ivy was climbing up the side wall and around to the front. I used the thicker pieces near the bottom and thinned them out as they got to the distance I wanted them. I also tried to make sure they branches in a fairly believeable way.
So, then I had a bunch of fluffy remains. This was made up of all the little twigs I'd removed from the main stalks. These still had tiny branching forms on them, and would work perfectly for giving the Ivy the body required.
So, I teased out small pieces, flattened them down, and proceeded to glue them onto the main stalks on the cottage wall. I'm really happy with how this turned out. I should point out that I couldn't simply flatten a full piece of Seafoam and attach it directly to the wall; The result would have been too haphazard and unrealistic, because Ivy behaves in a certain way. Doing it this way, adding the elements seperately gives me far more control over the structure of the plant.
The last thing needed to complete the effect would be the leaves. I picked up this amazing product called Ivy Leaf Scatter. It is amazing as the tiny leaves actually look like Ivy leaves. It's hard for me to tell what they are made of, but Kjestine reckons they are some kind of seed! Anyway, this works much the same as the bush/tree building; You put on some tacky scatter glue in patches...
...And then drop on the leaf scatter. The leaves stick to the glue and nothing else, giving a realistic effect (leaves don't grow on branches, only on extremities - This process mimics that really well). You then tap off the excess leaf scatter. I repeated this process (dropping leaf scatter on, and tapping off the excess) about three times for each patch of scatter glue, to ensure the glue was fully covered with leaves.
So, here is the Ivy crawling up the side and round to the front of the cottage...
posted by Paul (Vortex42) at
6:14 PM
3 Comments:
Absolutely brilliant, Paul! I'm so glad you are so clever and making a cottage like mine ahead of me! It's like having someone expert tell me what to do! That ivy looks fantastic!
yeah man....you giving us alot of experiance through your documentation.
much thanks!
jriggity
No need for thanks. I'm enjoying keeping a diary. It was originally meant to be a video diary, but there was no way I'd have been able to sit and edit together a video every couple of days. I might be able to do that on future projects though. But this has been fun... Taking the snapshots and writing the posts doesn't take particularly long and it's quite rewarding to know people are enjoying it. I certainly enjoy reading other people's blogs on making stop-motion films (including both of yours - Really it's me who should be thanking both of you for being such an inspiration!).
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