Lettering

[Laurence Finston]

Working on cutouts. This wasn't planned, so all of the drawings will need some modification. First I want to test making the joints. I could try doing some cutout animation.

[Laurence Finston]

Originally Posted by Laurence Finston

There are several types of camera moves: zooms, pans, tracks and tilts.

I forgot about rotating the camera about its own axis, or rather, about the line perpendicular to the surface of the lens and passing through the aperture. That one isn't used too often, probably because it would make the camera operator dizzy. They all correspond exactly to operations that can be performed on the focus when making a perspective projection using 3D graphics software.

These camera moves remind me of the kinds of motion possible for a ship or an airplane, which I read about a long time ago. I remember pitching and yawing but I've forgotten the names of the others.

[Laurence Finston]

Originally Posted by Laurence Finston

These camera moves remind me of the kinds of motion possible for a ship or an airplane, which I read about a long time ago. I remember pitching and yawing but I've forgotten the names of the others.

It suddenly occurred to me: "Rolling" is the third and there are only the three. They all refer to rotation about an axis. "Translation", aka. "shifting", isn't accounted for.

[Laurence Finston]

This is another drawing for "The Nutcracker" that I think would be suitable for cut-outs.

The first image shows a scan of the original drawing at 60% of the original size. I had to shrink it to get it to fit onto A4 within the 16:9 frame. The following images show parts of the drawing at the original size, multiple times for making cut-outs.

In theory, it should be possible to make composite images using rotation and shifting with MetaPost and exteps and/or TeX and dvips, but this didn't work well. I finally did it in GIMP, which worked great.

I may add a handle to the coffee cup, because without it, it looks like a teacup, while the pot looks like a coffee pot. On the other hand, it could just draw a teapot and use the two figures for different sections of the ballet.

[Laurence Finston]

In my broschure for Schmincke Horadam watercolors, I discovered one called "graphite gray". The pigment is actually graphite and it's intended to match the appearance of pencil drawings when combining them with watercolor. I made a background using it and tried it out with this drawing. I think it looks pretty good.

[Laurence Finston]

It occurred to me that it's very easy to reverse images using GIMP. In 2D, it's reflection about an axis and GIMP provides rotation about the vertical and horizontal axes of a picture as predefined operations. Reflection about an axis in 2D corresponds to rotation about an axis by 180° in 3D.

I now have right- and left-handed versions of this drawing and also of the ladybug fairy. Handed-ness or parity is an interesting mathematical topic and it can be used for interesting and sometimes confusing or puzzling visual effects.

Using the upside-down images also makes it possible for me to use the space on the page more efficiently. Making these cut-outs is producing even more scraps of paper than usual.

[Laurence Finston]

I've taken my first steps toward making paper puppets out of my cut-outs. Yesterday I made a couple of failed attempts but early this morning it worked nearly right away.

The idea is to take the two pieces that are meant to be connected with a moveable joint, sandwich them between two small pieces of paper and stitch all four pieces together with needle and thread. In order for the stitch to hold but also allow the inner pieces to move, the outer ones must have two holes while the inner ones have only one.

First I poked holes through the pieces. For the inner pieces I used the awl. It was too early to do any hammering, otherwise I would have used a hole punch, which is what I'll do in the future. For the outer pieces I used the needle that I later used for sewing everything together. Then I reinforced all the pieces with cellophane tape and poked through the holes again.

Then I secured the two inner pieces with a piece of removeable drafting tape, which must lie outside of the hole. Then I tape the outer pieces to the inner ones on each side with the same tape. This time, the tape can cover the holes because it will tear easily when pulled off through the stitch.

Then I make a single backstitch through all four layers and secure it on the back side. Then I remove all the drafting tape carefully. This time, I had to pull on the paper a little bit to free up the stitch because the hole through the inner pieces wasn't large enough. This shouldn't happen when I use a hole punch.

Finally, I snip off as much of the outer piece on the front as possible. The head is now freely moveable with respect to the trunk (in the plane).

Of course, for "production", the outer piece on the front and the thread should match the color of the face of the top inner piece, unless a "special effect" is desired. A small button would also be a possibility.

Using a rivet might also work. I have a riveter and rivets for fabric, if I can find all the parts.

[Laurence Finston]

I used my hole punches to make holes in the two layers of the paper puppet for each joint and also to make the paper disks that I sewed to the front and back. I bought some small buttons and tried using one. It worked and I think this would be good for some things, but not for this puppet. I used a piece of watercolor paper from a border I cut off of the paper in the following five photos. I never throw away scraps of watercolor paper. If I can't use them for painting, I can make very fine papier-mâché with it.

I think the idea of making jointed paper puppets has a lot of potential. I'd like to try mounting them on a sheet of heavy paper along with a pulley system made of paper and make the parts moveable by pulling on thread or light string. There are lots of other techniques used for pop-up books, too.
I bought some punched watercolor paper with holes for an Acme pegbar. Paper formats are a problem that I've been having to deal with. Neither animation paper nor watercolor is generally available in DIN formats, so I've having to do a lot of measuring and cutting or tearing to get the paper down to A4.

The steel ruler in 7th and 8th photos is an essential tool for folding the paper in order to tear it. I have two, this one is 40cm and the other must be 60 or 70cm. I'd like one that's 20cm or 30cm, but the company that made them doesn't seem to exist anymore and I couldn't find anything comparable, even at the fancy tool store I buy things from online sometimes. The weight makes it particularly suitable for this purpose, but a lighter one would also work; it would just slip more easily.

The next photo is a drawing for "The Nutcracker". The original is slightly larger, I had to shrink to 9/10 of the original size in order to fit it into the 16:9 frame on a sheet of DIN A3 paper. The snowflakes were intended to look like paper dolls, so they would be suitable for making jointed paper puppets. I used a Polychromos colored pencil for the background. I think it would be nice to replace it with a watercolor background and film it as though the camera were tracking the snowflakes as they fall. That is, I'd use a pan over the background.

The last two photos are of backgrounds I'd done on A3 paper (or slightly larger) and can't scan at home. I tried out the book scanners at the library where the items to be scanned are photographed from above. This way, I don't have to worry about getting the glass dirty. On the other hand, it's hard to align the items and they aren't pressed flat, as they are in a normal scanner. For panning, A3 will be better because the pattern won't repeat quite as fast. This is something I watch for in old cartoons, for example, when figures are driving along in front of a landscape.