STOP MOTION!

   Man have I been hit by this craze! It seems like I have been experimenting with stop motion ever since I was 7 or 8. But this weekend (and week) I have been going crazy and making a whole bunch of them. I am inspired by a lot of different videos that I have seen lately. So far I have made some just for fun like this one:

Want it bigger? Click here.

And then I have made some more:

Want it bigger? Click here.

And I even made one to show how to make a pretty cool, and wayyyyy too easy kind of stop motion. I used a high-to-medium speed shutter, as if to skip every other frame. ( I hope this is making sense) I just held the button down while we were walking, jumping, or skipping... so it made for a pretty cool kind of effect. Me and my friend Taylor acted like crazy people jumping all around my backyard (with the neighbors also outside). 

Want it bigger? Click here.

DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN?!?!?!

Well if you feel that something is dragging you to your camera and/or post-its then listen up! I have a few tips for making these.

1. NEVER EVER EVER move your camera... Its a real pain in the butt not to move your camera around a lot but you don't want your pictures to be very shaky (besides the small shakes that give stop motion its charm). So, use a tripod or tape your camera to the counter or something.

2. CLEAR IDEA... I definitely did not have a clear idea on some of these. For example, the first one (and my first complete short film) I was making up on the spot. You can probably tell because the plot is fuzzy and makes pretty much no sense. But nonetheless I like sock monkeys and the fact that I stood in the scorching heat of my backyard that day all alone shooting it. It was worth the 18 seconds of video though.

3. PATIENCE you need it. so get it. I am probably not the one that should be telling you this as this is a problem of my own... sometimes... but just to run off some numbers for you:

SOCK MONKEY STOP MOTION: Probably around 300+ pictures


POST IT STOP MOTION: 212 pictures


THAT LAST ONE:  Easily 200-400 pictures

Ok so I am not absolutely positive on the exact number of pictures for each but I do know that it was more than I thought there would be.

So, another trend thing is using Legos to make a stop motion. Here is one amazing tutorial on how to get them look like there walking.

• click here for tutorial •

I made a stop motion with legos and also took some funny pictures and stuff using the undeniably lovely little characters. Here are some of my favorite shots throughout the process:

Here they are.. you might be able to see that they have little uniforms. Nothing special, just black and white.

This one had a face on each side so it makes for a more diverse character.

The expression on this one? I love it!

I love how I could just rotate the heads and hair out to make a completely new person!!!

Here was my set up. I used my light box and my new $10 each construction lights. It pretty much worked amazingly in my opinion.

And I really really like this song called Carol Brown by Flight of the Conchords. Its funny and quirky I love the vid. too!So why not combine a good song and stop motion to make a great stop motion video!! I have made a little teaser for it. Sadly but understandably there are all these copyright issues and stuff so the video is only available on a computer rather than also on mobile devices or tvs.

to see the video on YouTube you must...

• CLICK HERE •
• OR CLICK HERE •
• OR MAYBE EVEN CLICK HERE •

I am obviously disappointed in the fact that this limits the amount of people that can watch it, but it cannot be changed :(. Happily, (in another format) I am able to upload this version which even though is smaller, is still the video and thats what matters! Here it is:

I am going to post the finished video sometime in the future (So check back here!) but for now you are left with only a sneak peek!

Hope this helps with all your little stop motion wants and needs when it comes to ideas and inspiration!

DIY ENHANCING SKETCHES

Your drawing will look much better after you do this!!!

 I have been drawing a lot lately at school and it reminded me of my intention to make a printable of my art that I had a while ago. So I came home to day and scanned in one of my old but loved drawings. It didn't look to good:

I decided to touch it up to give it the brighter colors that I see in real life - rather than the dull, streaked look that my printer did. I figured this must be a pretty common problem when it comes to scanning in your precious art. To fix this first open your photo in photoshop:

Now duplicate your background so your layers should look like this:

With your duplicated layer selected go to Image > Adjustments > Selective Color.

In the dropdown menu select magenta. This step is sort of up to you because you have to select the color that you want to enhance. For me, I only had one color in this and the rest were neutrals. 

Go to the last slider titled "black" and drag it to +100.

Now select Black on the dropdown menu.

And do the same thing:

Now go to Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches.

The menu should be set to a radius of 3 and threshold should be 0.

And now (still selected on your duplicate layer) Go to that dropdown thingy that says "normal" and set it to "soft light".

So here is the result:

I really like it and the printable is available too!

• CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE •

I sure hope this was useful! I will definitely use this again. Thanks,

INSTAGRAM UPDATE

 So like forever ago, I shared all of my instagram pictures with you guys and I thought I should do it again. So for the past couple of weeks here has been my instagram feed (which is also updated daily on the side of left side of my blog):

My gamepieces for a school project :). (above and below)

Agatha lounging in the sun. 

Looking at old photos: Disney 2009 (me)

I went exploring in the woods, its kind of creepy this time of year!

Pretty flowers I found just before the sun went down.

Leaves.

Working on my youtube video that I made for my last post. You can find it here.

Up to my current pants:

I post all sorts of random things so if you want to you can follow me by clicking below:

• FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM •

DIY PORTRAIT PHOTOS!

Creepy? Yes... it probably is!

 So at least for me, I always thought that getting that perfectly white and nice background would be impossible with my camera and I would never get the right lighting. No matter how hard I tried, I always had a shadow somewhere! Well I solved my problem, and although it isn't a one-shot-and-done kind of process, it works, and thats all that really matters. I took some pictures throughout my process of
this so you can take your pictures too!

~to make your cheap (but effective!) photo studio follow this tutorial~

Get two pieces of foam board about $2 each. I used some scotch some tape that I had on hand and for lighting, the sun. Set them up like this:

Where the reflected light is coming from, either hold or have someone hold the other piece of white foam board directing the light towards your subject.

Here is the before and after with and without the reflector, you can see that the lighting gets evened with the light reflectors.

Here is how you should hold the foam board. It really does make a difference, so the extra $2 is totally worth it.

Did I mention? I do not like artificial lighting, actually I hate it, the sun is better. And on those rainy or dark days I will bust out my emergency fluorescent lights, but for now I'm only going to use the nice natural lighting that spills onto our garage wall from about 2 - 4 P.M. 

my little cousin who is awesome decided to be nice and cooperate perfectly by standing in front of that board for me to take pictures of him. From his point of view he was seeing this, make sure your camera is centered in front of the foam board.

The pictures looked great on my camera, but just okay on the computer. I don't know why though! So I did cheat a little by adjusting them on photoshop to make them perfect. Before editing, the pictures looked something like this:

I mean I sort of like the natural look of it, but it didn't work for what I wanted for this project. I made a little video for the first time to show how to make the change from grayish to white. If it does not work or is not big enough, try going to the direct youtube link by clicking here or clicking the "youtube button" at the bottom of the video. Crossing my fingers this works :).

Time for the finished products! Luckily I took most of these on Sunday because the lighting has been not so good when I get home from school..

Me...

My Dad... he was washing his car so I interrupted him!

Austin, I love this picture because my white background thing on photoshop work wonders for this picture, or so I think.

And thats a perfect example of what the light reflector does, because under an umbrella it will get extra dark and I don't have a before-after but just trust me that it made a difference.

With all of these pictures, there is now an option to change the background color to any picture you can imagine through photoshop. I am really glad that I made this tiny little studio in my garage because I'm very happy with my results!

Hope this helps you make your own little studio at home!

DIY VINTAGE FRAMES!

    So I've had these two cheap wooden IKEA frames for a couple years, and decided that they should be something other than white. I also found this cool vintage dictionary on one of my thrift adventures, so I thought it would look really super cool, to combine the two and make the boring frames awesome!

Those are the two frames... I mean they are pretty much begging for a transformation!

This is my thrifted dictionary, and I love finding all of my favorite words and stuff. There have also been some pretty cool old bookmarks hidden inside.

I only needed about two-and-a-half pages to cover both frames.

I found this page appropriate to use...

Get your large brush and MOD PODGE(!) out.

Start with a base coat on the frame so that it will stick better to the actual surface.

Cover the whole frame! I left pieces hanging off to make it look more like a stack of jumbled papers, instead of only straight lines. You can cut them off later:

With an exact-o knife of course! And my brand new, extra sharp knife worked well to cut through the dried glue and thick-ish pages.

Here is one frame done and what it looks like before and after the edges are cut off.

Before > After

You might want to do another coat of Mod Podge like I did so you can't see streaks in the paper.

So this frame will be a great way to show all of my art projects or doodles and stuff. Did you notice my two self portraits? Hopefully you like them :).