Can I Animate This?
I'm compelled to make weird prints of every figurine I can find
Earlier this year I got into making prints of toys and figurines. Is it a kind of joke? Not completely, because I’m very much invested in how these weird pieces turn out. I don’t really see this as art that I’m personally creating, but something that needs to appear and is being channeled through me. Know what I mean?
I’ve done loads of these videos on Tiktok and instagram reels. Some of them took off in a big way. That’s probably because they’re full of popular characters. Obviously a lot of people are hanging out on #Gollum #Yoda #Sonic and #PrincessPeach.
It started out as an experiment with collecting textures with my children. We use balls of plasticine to get the texture of whatever we can find, then use an ink pad to print it like a rubber stamp. The toys and figurines gave the most interesting results and the obsession started from there (for me at least. The children lost interest pretty quickly.)
And in my house I have an awful lot of toys and figurines. I did before any children arrived out of me. I can’t imagine ever running out.
So I’ll never stop! But the question is, can this stuff be animated? Could it be done? Should it be done? Here’s my test:
The results are kind of a mess. This was three figurines; two dragon toys and the face of a twelve inch Frodo Baggins. I made about twelve prints of each and photographed them on Dragon Frame (animation software) lining them up as neatly as I could. I think better results could be achieved by scanning them and making sure they’re tidily aligned. Maybe one day I’ll go there.
I had this idea that I could animate movement with them, since once the imprint is on the plasticine it is malleable, so why not? The reason why not is that once you actually press down the print it’s very tricky to control how it lands and spreads. If we’re talking like, facial expressions moving, mouth shapes etc, it might be possible to do it just by making a tonne of the prints and choosing the ones that work best. All things to try at some point in future.
Is any of this ‘for anything’ is it ‘worth it’? Absolutely not. This particular project is entirely willed by some outside force and I just have to do what I’m told. Perhaps I will have more to show one day.
If you want to try making prints like these I absolutely recommend it! Play around with tools. I am using kids plasticine which is a bit closer to play-doh and less greasy than the usual kind. I think blu-tack would work well. I’m using a black ink pad made for rubber stamps. I tried other colours and found they weren’t very crisp but that might be down to the ink pads I have. Enjoy!