Maarten Van Rooy

Stop Motion Again

2011-11-25T00:06:00.002+01:00

I've been doing some tests with liquid latex on snipping foam to see how well it works. The results are quite nice, and it's the process is not too complicated. So I decided to try this on a puppet!
It's a green monster, inspired by the one from the movie The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

It is a alluminium wire armature. I used wooden blocks for the chest and the feet, epoxy putty and alluminium tube for the arms, legs and hips. The eyeballs in the skull are wooden balls and are animatable. The jaw can go up and down and I also added some wired piece of loose skin at the back of its head, which makes it also animatable.

As soon as my computer likes me again, I'll upload some test animations I did.

Les P'tites Poules

2010-08-28T21:29:00.001+02:00

For the last five months I have been working on the CG animated children's series Les P'tites Poules (Eng: Little Chicks). The series is based on the children's books by Christian Heinrich and Christian Jolibois.
The animation is done in Angouleme, France and in Brussels. At the moment we're animating the final episode.
The episodes are aired on France 5 every Saturday and Sunday around 9.30 AM (GMT+1) in the Ludo program.

2010-06-30T20:24:00.000+02:00

These are some illustrations I did a while ago.

2010-03-19T09:02:00.002+01:00

2010-03-17T10:57:00.000+01:00

2010-03-05T14:16:00.000+01:00

A drawing I did for a friend of mine.

Animoko at Anima

2010-02-22T08:35:00.003+01:00

Last Thursday, I was asked to animate in front of an audience at the Anima Festival to demonstrate the capabilities of the Animoko, a motion control rig designed for stop motion animation. The presentation was done by Animoko designer Kommer Kleijn and Vincent Gilot.

Vincent Gilot and Kommer Kleijn

Cleaned Out: 2nd for the Animex Stop Motion Award!

2010-02-12T12:20:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, it was announced that Cleaned Out was runner-up for the Animex Stop Motion Award! Hurray!

Werken in de animatiesector

2010-02-10T16:21:00.001+01:00

Colored drawings

2010-02-04T15:54:00.001+01:00

2010-02-04T11:45:00.000+01:00

Cleaned Out screens on Anima 2010 Festival

2010-02-03T11:40:00.001+01:00

Cleaned Out will be shown this month at the Brussels Animation Film Festival!

Screenings are:
Sunday February 14th at 18h00 in Studio 4, large screen,
Saturday February 20th at 17h30 in Studio 5. It's in the programme 'It's Belgian 2'.

http://www.animatv.be

List of all known festival screenings

CG Lipsync The Shining

2010-01-15T15:16:00.002+01:00

To practice my CG skills, I animated a CG character in 3d Studio Max. It's a lipsync on the voice of Jack Nicholson in the movie The Shining by Stanley Kubrick.

Thanks to Manuel Sierra for the creating the rig.

Merry Christmas to all!

2009-12-21T09:43:00.005+01:00

For my first Toon Boom attempt, I decided to go for an animated christmascard! Merry Christmas and a happy Newyear!

Friday Market

2009-11-30T18:40:00.005+01:00

2009-11-19T11:51:00.002+01:00

Economic Crisis

2009-11-18T11:42:00.004+01:00

El Toro

2009-11-14T14:26:00.003+01:00

It's full of stars!

2009-10-22T00:40:00.003+02:00

Animation Festivals - Cleaned Out & Yakkety-Yak Selected

2009-10-19T18:19:00.030+02:00

There are some filmfestivals out there where my films are shown!

Cleaned Out
No-Festival, Chelyabinsk, Russia*, 05/11/2009
Holland Animation Film Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 6/11/2009
Het Grote Ongeduld!, Brussels, Belgium, 18/11/2009
Expotoons, Buenos Aires, Argentina 25-28/11/2009
International Shortfilmfestival Leuven, Belgium, 12/2009 3th place
Future Film Festival, Bologna, Italy, 01/2010
Animex Festival, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, 02/2010 Stop Motion Award runner-up
Anima Animation Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 14/02/2010
Ciné Privé, Gent, 02/2010
De Langste Nacht Van De Korte Film 2, Overijse, Belgium, 27/02/2010
Salento Finibus Terrae International Short Film Festival, San Vito dei Normanni, Italy, 07/2010
Les Nuits Magiques, Begles, France, 3/12/2010

Yakkety-Yak
International Film Festival Ghent, Belgium 11/10/2008
Animex Festival, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, 02/2009
Klik! Amsterdam, The Netherlands 09/2009
No-Festival, Chelyabinsk, Russia* 05/11/2009
Future Film Festival, Bologna, Italy 01/2010

*Openingsscreening: Presentation of new animation from Belgium.

If I find out some more, I'll let you know.

New website online!

2009-10-18T21:07:00.003+02:00

You can find my new website here:

http://www.maartenvanrooy.net

Cleaned Out is also online!

2009-07-29T14:46:00.004+02:00

Lots of things to watch these days! You can watch it in full view on Youtube.

Showreel online!

2009-07-29T14:33:00.003+02:00

It was already online for a couple of weeks, but forgot to tell you! Hopla!

Vote for Yakkety-Yak for the Animex Audience Award!

2009-06-22T13:32:00.007+02:00

I wasn't aware of this until Koen gave me a call. In February this year, Yakkety-Yak was selected and screened at the Animex festival in Middlesbrough, UK. It was "For Sock's Sake" who won the Stop Motion award.

Now the audience can vote for there favourite short!
You can watch Yakkety-Yak here. If you like it, you can vote for it!

Cleaned Out - Short Preview

2009-06-22T11:18:00.007+02:00

As promised, here is a short preview of Cleaned Out!

Greets!

From under the dust

2009-05-11T22:24:00.005+02:00

As the end of my school carreer is approaching, I was thinking about the first short animated sequence I did in stop frame technique. It was a chance for me and Andreas to be able to use an old Bolex 16mm, which would be replaced by digital camera's (the ones we use now).

Enjoy!

(there is no sound)

They can talk

2009-05-11T18:28:00.007+02:00

Today I recorded the voices! They were done by Flemish actors Sven De Ridder and David Davidse. I'm very pleased with the result! It's interesting to see how characters come to life with the addition of sounds.
This sunday it's back into the studio for the recording of the music track!

Animation finished!

2009-04-28T09:29:00.006+02:00

Last week I did my final shot. Now it's on to the post-production. Still a lot of work there, but it'll be nice to see it come together.

The Hallway

2009-04-07T20:13:00.007+02:00

I finished the first two shots of the hallway! Hurray! Now it's nine shots to do and the animation is finished!

2009-03-31T15:40:00.001+02:00

I'm in a bit of a delay updating this blog. I started animating a while ago and the animation for the office part is almost finished now. This week I'll set up the hallway.
The orangered sky you see behind the set is from another students project.

It's the Princess!

2009-03-30T13:12:00.002+02:00

The 5th of March, our very own Princess Mathilde decided to come and visit our school. She also brought a whole crowd from the press. These people are nuts! The press I mean.

Puppet dress-up

2009-03-24T23:09:00.010+01:00

The heads are cast in 2-component polyurethane (PU). I filled the holes (caused by the air bubbles) with Milliput.

For the cops' armatures I used a mix of ball 'n' socket parts and souldered kns with twisted aluminium wire. This armature doesn't have a spine, but these characters don't need it that much for the movie. It also makes them more durable.

Snipping foam or mattres foam, which I got from my grandfathers attic, is an easy and fast way to give the characters volume. The feet you see in the picture are also cast in polyurethane, directly onto the armatures feet.
And then it's off to the fabric store! This was harder then I thought. If there is one advise I can give you, it will be this: buy THIN fabric! Puppets don't like thick clothes.

Finished Sets

2009-03-24T22:50:00.009+01:00

Finally, the finished sets. For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the hallway. I'll post some pictures of it later on.

The exterior set has a halogen lamp in it, which will be the main light source.

More set building

2009-01-27T23:53:00.009+01:00

Here are some more pictures of the office.
I'll start building the exterior set soon, of which I finished the dumpster some time ago.

Props and backgrounds

2009-01-11T13:00:00.004+01:00

Besides just the 'popkes maken' it's also the set- and propmaking that is a big part of the preproduction. These are already older pics, I'll post some new later.

Puppets in the making!

2009-01-07T23:29:00.011+01:00

Pictures!
Already a few of the heads. I started making the moulds of the baked heads last week and, this week I made a first plastic head. It all went pretty well, I think (except for the ears).

Update: New office design

2008-12-04T12:40:00.006+01:00

For the officeset I redesigned a couple of things. Most importantly I made it look more like an office of a boss than just another office (dark wooden desk, heavy chair, large painting) The small table is now completely made out of wood, for possible lighting issues with a glass surface.

Graduation Project

2008-11-27T15:33:00.019+01:00

Hi everyone! I'm working on my graduation project now, which is going to be a stop-frame animated short. My animatic is almost finished now and I just ordered the wood to make the sets!
Tomorrow I'm going to order the armatures for my puppets, which have to come all the way from Paris.

I already designed most parts of the sets, but it's mostly the office of the head of the company that will get a makeover.

Birthday Card

2008-10-07T13:00:00.001+02:00

A short animation I made for my girlfriends birthday.

Yakkety-Yak selected for International Filmfestival Ghent

2008-10-03T21:15:00.005+02:00

Like the title says: Yakkety-yak is in the competition for this year's filmfestival!
Hurray!

International Filmfestival Ghent
Making of Yakkety-yak Blog

Yakkety-Yak completed!

2008-06-27T11:04:00.007+02:00

Indeed! The stopmotion project me and Andreas worked on all year is finally finished! A few weeks ago we were able to record the 'voices' to use in the film.

Especially for you we made a little 'making of Yakkety-Yak'! Enjoy!

Link: Yakkety-Yak blog

Flash Lipsync

2008-03-18T23:02:00.008+01:00

A little flash lipsync with the voice of one of my buddies. He says "Hello? Mom?" in my local dialect.

Cleaning Up

2008-02-29T20:11:00.008+01:00

Last year we've created a 4 minute stop motion short in group. There was a lot of 'clean-up' to do, so we divided the shots. Cleaning up is a slow, monotonous and non creative task. I just finished my part of the job. You can see (a part of) the result below.

Watch the full uncleaned short (youtube)

Landscape Sketches

2008-02-29T20:06:00.002+01:00

Some more landscape sketches I have made in my hometown. The first one is colored in Photoshop.

Bachelor Graduation Project

2008-02-24T21:46:00.006+01:00

This year we have to make a animated short as a graduation project. Me and Andreas came up with an idea for a 2 minute stop motion short. You can read all about it on our exclusive blog!

Sketchbook

2008-01-24T20:52:00.000+01:00

Self-portrait

2007-11-24T17:08:00.001+01:00

Sketchbook (November)

2007-11-24T16:18:00.000+01:00

Landscapes (October)

2007-11-24T14:24:00.001+01:00

Making a Mould

2007-09-02T15:47:00.000+02:00

In the previous post I was talking about the long feature film Panique au Village - Le Long. Because I worked there, I was able to see how everything is done. I could also just ask them how they do things and why they do it that way. After those weeks I got the idea of trying to make a mould myself. I wanted to try a male Barbiedoll's head. Because you can squeeze these heads, it is not an easy job to start drilling holes for the eyes or to resculpt the heads. If I could make a resin head out of it, this would be an easier job.
I went to Vosschemie in Lier and bought a can of one component liquid sillicone. It turned out to be a little bit more expensive than I thought, so I didn't bought the resin yet.
Now for the mould making itself. It was a real challenge to make the hair of the doll's original head in one piece. I used glue mixed with water to create a solid shape that would keep the original texture of the hair.
When I added the sillicone I was a bit affraid, because of the air bubbles that kept coming to the surface. But in the end, the shape of the mall turned out to be very smooth. Only for the hair part, I had to cut away some of the excessive sillicone. At the moment I don't know wether the mould really works or not. I'm probably going to test it with plaster first.

Panique au Village

2007-09-02T15:23:00.001+02:00

The first three weeks of July I have been working on the long feature film of Panique au Village. It started from a television serie, created by Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier.
In those three weeks I had to make parts of a couple of trucks, I had to 'repair' a bit of the original scenery (used for the series), and paint some of the characters to be used in the film. I'm glad I took part in this production for a few weeks, I have learned a couple of important and useful things.
The film itself is coming out in 2009.

More on:
paniqueauvillage.lalibreblogs.be
www.paniqueauvillage.com

My First Paradise

2007-09-02T15:04:00.001+02:00

Hmm, it has been a while, hasn't it? Anyway, last schoolyear, we were asked to make a short stop motion film. We decided to make one single film with the entire class. This way, our little project could be a bit bigger. The sound is still missing and the cleaning-up still has to be done. As soon as the final version is finished, I'll put it here:)

Agadoo

2007-06-07T22:36:00.002+02:00

Our last 2d assignment this year, was to make a animation with a dancing character. I used the song 'Agadoo' from Black Lace.
Special thanks to Andreas for the shadow-trick.

Comic

2007-06-07T21:54:00.000+02:00

For our subject 'Scenario & Concept' we had to create a short comic. Here you see the first page of my story. I'm pretty satisfied with the result. The final look of the comic is very close to the style I originally wanted it to be. I used Flash to do the inking, the coloring is done in Photoshop.

Eduard

2007-06-06T13:12:00.001+02:00

In june 2006, me and some friends put together a one-minute stop motion short.
Those who worked on this short are: Andreas De Ridder (the kid), Koen De Koninck (grandma), Koen Saelemaekers (the cat) and me (grand dad). The montage is done by Bastiaan Delforche.