iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

🌋💖HEPHAESTUS AND APHRODITE: TEASER TRAILER 💖🌋 Sneak peak at my stop motion senior thesis film. Been. Chipping away at this for the past year and I can’t wait to share it when it’s done!

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Just a quick doodle-dump from the ol’ journal.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Here’s a thread on how I made my stop motion puppets for my thesis film Hephaestus and Aphrodite! I’m in the process of finishing post production now, but wanted to share these in the mean time! 🔨🌋💖💋

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

And thats the puppets! I might try and do a similar thread for how the sets were made as well. And eventually the actual animation and post-production. Hope you enjoy!

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Her skin was also felt, and her dress was a thin fabric with wire inside. I wanted a billowing look to her skirt, and one that I could manipulate within the shot, which ended up being a major pain to death with, but thats the nature of these things.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Her hair was made up of layers of wire and felt. I’d wrap a bit of wire with some felt, glue it together, twist into curls, then glue those to the wires on her head. The idea was to keep her hair mobile enough to still be animated in shot.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Aphrodite was both simpler and more complex. Her design had a lot more moving parts, with her floating all the time, and her hair moving on its own. The core was similar with wire limbs, but I added wires coming out of the head to attach her hair to. And no legs of course.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

The solution I got to was a material called DAP, which I’d never heard of before, but was used by cosplayers to put a flexible plastic coat on top of foam. So I gave it a shot, and it worked like a charm!

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

At the 11th hour, I remade the puppet almost entirely from scratch. I wanted to keep the musculature from the carved foam and coat it without the form gettng lost, or the puppet itself looking too much like just painted foam.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

My initial attempt was to go very traditional, with a base of wire and foam, and a skin of foam sportswrap and liquid latex. This didn’t work. I ended up carving fairly complex musculature that got completely lost by the process of using the sports wrap.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I made Hephaestus first, wanting him to be very musclular and geometric. The idea was to make him and Aphrodite appear made of contrasting materials. Hephaestus would be rough and rock-like, and Aphrodite would be soft and fuzzy.

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Want to start posting some of my process in making my #seniorthesis Hephaestus and Aphrodite, so here’s some concept art and character explorations I did to figure out how my characters would look and what dynamic they would have. #indieanimation #studentanimation #characterdesign

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Kaiju Dan @kaiju-dan.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Here’s a few in-progress shots from my upcoming thesis, Hephaestus and Aphrodite, a retelling of Greek mythology which explores how those who are only appreciated for what they do for others, and the connections between love, and the passion one feels for their craft. #indieanimation #stopmotoin

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