News
Tag: character
10 DIY tips for sculpting custom character parts with ModiBot
ModiBot has become a critical starting point for many people's creative projects, including stopmotion animation, scene photography, custom action figures, and both digital and hands-on character design. More and more, creators want to design and sculpt their own ModiBot-compatible parts. This is the best place to start. 1. Match the correct ModiBot kit to your sculpting material Not all ModiBots work with certain materials. Once you have determined what material you'd like to sculpt with, it's best to choose the ModiBot kit that supports sculpting that those materials. **Its possible that there is no ModiBot kit to support the material you are most familiar with. CAUTION: Avoid using oil or plastic-based clays with the classic MO kit because these will make the plastic...
Character design template for download
Character Design Template for ModiBot Mo figure kit Evey great story is built upon the foundation of great characters, but memorable characters don’t just grow on trees, they are crafted to tell that specific story that is held within them. The prospect of their personal growth and subsequent adventures are hidden there just below the […]
Visual FX for stopmotion- Featured artist: Tony Booth a.k.a Flash Flanker
Visual FX for stopmotion This short called ‘Dark Soul’ is from newcomer Tony Booth a.k.a Flash Flanker. What I love about Tony’s approach here is that he instantly starts out creating a feeling that the world is off-kilter. The flashing imagery and severe lighting make the scenes fell more creepy even though they are well […]
Green screen animation technique- Featured artist: Mauricio Lozano
Green screen animation technique This clip below from Mauricio Lozano features several higher-level animation techniques. The first is filming against a green screen. This compositing technique allows you to crop out the background and replace the it with a photograph or 3d modeled scene. As you can see from the final composite, this technique is […]
Speaking at Bay Area Maker Faire and Make: Hardware Innovation Works
I’ll be speaking about ModiBot, the role of Making and guerrilla product development in the current ‘free agent’ economy. Come build some ‘bots at the conference or bring the kids and come see us at Bay Area Maker Faire on May 18th and 19th!
Complete posable figure
Big Balls. That’s a problem. Another round of parts. This time I upped the ball size to create more tension in the joint. That definitely worked, maybe a bit too well, so I’m going to bring the ball back down a bit. The one nice and unexpected side effect of the bigger ball is that […]
Possible improvements
Since we’re running with this whole ‘constant beta’ mentality that is being discussed a lot in the start-up world, here’s a few new updated parts. I’ve already shifted many around, taken some down and hopefully made the system better and robust at every turn. Kaizen has worked out pretty well for the Japanese, right? I […]
Delayed gratification
In the product world, it takes a long time to get product to shelf, but you are trying to put so many items through the pipeline that you don’t have a lot of time to ‘sit around’ waiting for something to show up. I got my 3rd round of parts in the mail today. Once […]
Parts!!!
So, I finally got my first batch of parts, more than a week past my scheduled delivery. It was really exciting to open the box. I had no idea what to expect. The parts were three pairs of upper arms shot in two different materials. It was pretty apparent which material to move forward in, […]
1st part order- ETA Halloween
So the order for my first proto parts went in last week some time. This first test batch (upper arms) is coming from Shapeways. I ordered a few parts to check the overall finish, strength and compliance of the snaps and the overall durability of the plastic itself. I tried a few of both the […]