Research of Stop-motion styles and character designs

This extensive research into different types/styles of clay mation allowed me to further develop my own designs by listing/ commenting and analysing what I do and don't like about those I researched. I'm a huge Aardman fan (a Wallace & Gromit clay modelling gift set I received as a ten year old largely inspired my animation ambitions!) and love their quirky but easily recognisable character designs. Also, the personalities and eccentricities of the characters are  sublimely animated through clever use of body language and expressions. Particularly in the non verbal characters where a twitch of an eyebrow is enough to convey thought process (Gromit). In Creature Comforts subtle human traits such as hand gestures or gulps, sighs etc are brilliantly portrayed by the animal characters.

 Chicken Run- one of my favourite childhood films (I had it on VCR!!)

 Stop-motion legends Tim Burton and Henry Selick are hugely inspiring as are their extremely smooth animation techniques and stylized characters and sets. The shapes and silhouettes of the characters are easily recognisable and help to portray the traits of the characters (particularly in the case of both sets of parents) Also the colour palettes used particularly in conveying contrasting worlds are very interesting and using this contrast will work well to highlight the differences between the branch and the greedy chairman's office in my piece.

 I watched Max and Mary as part of my research and fell in love with the character and set design (creator Adam Elliott brief of "no straight lines" gave a beautiful other word quality to the sets)

Pictures of my research notebook. I paid particular attention to eyes and mouth shapes as these are the two most vital components of both the overall design and look of the character but also the "bringing to life" by animation....

I decided to use white beads for the eyes

Research of Permanent tsb's stop motion ads. I worked in permanent tsb for six years which definitely inspired the story! Ptsb used an American animation company for there series of expensive ads. After the Irish tax-payer bailing them out it's a shame they didn't hire an Irish animation company.