Making the model.
Since I wanted to create a dragon, and i figured the dragon will be larger then the usual models, so I figured in order for me to create a Dragon that can stand, and not fall a part the best idea was to create an armature out off wires. I couldn't use any wire it had to be a special kind of wire, a wire which was flexible, I had a few option to choose from  one was to use 1.6mm Galvanised Armature wire, or 1.6MM Aluminum Armature wire, I tried using the Galvanised wire but while testing the wire for flexibility I realized that Galvanised wire was not an option to even consider, Instead I used the Aluminum wire which was more flexible. I also needed two other different sized wires for wiring the Armature pieces together, the two wires I used were Aluminium Armature wire one was size 0.56mm and the other was 1.0mm.

Moving on to creating the Armature
First what I did was cut the 1.6mm wire and made a large shape out of it, and then i moved on to cutting the two pieces of the arms next I made a small bend on the two arm pieces and tided to the body with the 1.56 wire and then with the 1.00mm wire, the reason for this was to keep it together, and make the body stronger. Then I made two small bend on the arms one where the elbow is located and the next where the hand joint are. Next I moved on to doing both legs, once again I cut two piece of wire and made a bent which I tide it to the main armature body, and next I made two bends one where the knees are located and the next where the ankle are located.

And this is what the armature looked like.

Next my mission was to bulk the armature in tin foil and tape it together, to do that first I cut the tin foil into piece and made it into balls and then unball it so that it would be all crinkly, the reason for this was because the armature hold it better and its also a greater balking method.

This is what the armature look like with the tin foil and the tape.

Cover the Armature with clay.

To cover the model in clay I used a yellow colour Giottoo modeling clay, my first step was just to cover the armature in clay, it wasn't to add any details. So to start off I cut pieces of clay, knead it and then flattened it with a hairspray bottle, and made it as thin as possible and slowly added layer of clay on the armature, the reason I didn't just go about adding large amount of clay to the armature was because I wanted to know what i was doing, and have an even amount of clay on the whole body, and this way I could tell what is what, and to me it seemed a lot simper this way to coat it a couple of time.

The model after a few layers of clay.

(The orange colour on the feet is not his actual feet its just to keep him standing)..

Adding the head and some muscles...

Since I've never done muscles before , I decided to just add little bits of clay on the parts where i thought there should be muscles, what i simply done was put little pieces of clay to even out the shap of the dragon aswell as adding muscles,.

Next I added the head. to add the head I already had added tin foil in the previews steps, the foil was to just to make a little example of where the head should be, aswell as to make it stronger when animating it, Now all I did was just added few layers of yellow clay, and slowly built the shape of the head i wanted , before the last layer for the head I made two holes where the eyes should be, and then inserted two littles black shaped clay balls, and after that I added the last clay layer for the head.

This is what the dragon looked like after adding the head.

Adding the scales.

for the scales I flattened the clay, and then used a knife to cut the shapes of the scales, after having all the shapes i wanted and then worked my way from the tail slowly adding each scale separately, and I had to keep in mind to maintain in one direction, as i didn't want the scales to look messy of the body. after covering the tail with scales up to the end of the tail i then wen't about to do both back legs, and then worked my way to up where the tail is, what i basically did I just put the tip of each scales where the last two scales meets and i made sure to follow that same route and i continued on to the main body and worked my way to the arms and then up to the neck.

A few scale shapes.

Adding the wings.

I wasn't planing of having wings for the dragon however I ended up deciding at the end to make wing, which sort of made thing a bit difficult , If I had known that i will make wing , I would've made the wings with the main body Armature, however since i decided to make at the last minute all i needed was the same Armature Aluminium wire i used for the main body, i cut three pieces each piece was about an inch smaller, next i tide them up together with wire and covered it with tin foil and finally covered it with clay. 

The wings

The making of the background.

my first idea for making the background was to use print outs and cut them out in order to make them 3D like , however when doing that it did work , just for the background, not for the ground, since I wanted the ground to be 3D like I couldn't just use print outs, the reason for this was because on the ground everything seemed to become flat and the amout print out i needed was unbelievable, plus print out seemed to be more expensive then the idea I had, which was to create the ground out of real rock. so to make the ground I just used real small rocks and stock them to cardboard with PVA glue, the reason I used PVA glue.

A picture of the ground... Not finished yet and the glue is still wet that's why its still white and not transparent..

I also made a stone hill for the Dragon to stand on.

The Plastic piece after cover it with rocks.

Creating the puppet.

 to create the puppet I used Aluminium wire to create the armature and then I used tin for some parts of the puppet , to make it stronger I also used masking tape and duck tape to keep the tin foil together.

                                           The Puppets armature         The Puppet being covered with tin foil.

The Puppet after being duck taped. (wow one of the picture is a gif and I have no idea how it happend.)

Next out of silk material I created a cover for the puppet and filled it in with cotton wools. The reason for this method was because it would make the puppet easier to animate, if I used clay to animate the puppet it would've made things difficult when in production as when its created with clay the clay tends to become a little messy a specially when knowing the puppet will be used to make a lot of movements. creating the full puppet body I then used threads and needle to threaded together, next I used a piece of denim fabric to create the jeans for the puppet and I also used a piece of leather to create a pair of boots, I also created a top for the puppet. I also created a head (which to be covered with clay before animating, I created the head by using a tin foil and making a ball out of it.

The Puppet after finishing the body.

 After creating the jeans I then used leather to create a pair of boots, I had to sew the boots to the whole the legs, because I had no choice, plus this way made it easier for the boots to have a shape and size.

The puppet being nearly complete, all is needed is to make a jacket for it.

Creating My stopmotion animation
I've decided to use a DSLR camera to create the animation, the reason for this decision is because after looking back at my first every animation (level2 media) I have realised how bad the quality is due to using the HUE cameras , the quality of the image seem to be very law , how every if I don't succed in using the DSLR I have a back up plane and it to use the HUE cameras. I have also decided to do the animation at home the reason for this dission is because I have created the set for the animation at home, and I can't bring it to college and the only thing I can do is to do it at home.

Making the animation.
In order to create the claymation piece I used a HUE camera and I also used a software called monekyjam, its a claymation animation software which is available for free, the reason I used this software is because it was amazingly free and it work the same way Istopmotion works. to get stared i got the background ready which was made of print outs, and got my models ready , next I set the setting in Monekyjam to 25frame per second.
After finishing with the making of the animation in Monekyjam I then Used both premier pro and after effect to edit, i wasn't planing on using after effect but then i realised i wanted to add a fire effect to the dragons mouth so I had no other choice but to use after effect, how ever I'm glad i used it as i learned a few new thing from it.
When editing in premier pro I used an effect for the beginning of the animation, the effect is known as Ghosting which made the beginning of the animation blurry I guess , the reason I used this effect is because I wanted the beginning to look like a memory or a dream, and something from the past the could be seen as a story which led a the imp to his dead, and which led him to the treasure which was protected by the dragon and and show as though it was greed which led him to his own end.

MonekyJam

Premierpro

Premierpro

Evaluation

For this assignment we were asked to create a piece of animation of our choice, whether it was a reacting from a film or another animation, or something that we came up with. The animation was to be marked on it's quality, and it had to be 19second long. we had three option one was to do timelapes animation, the other was model based and one was cut-out, so for mine I decided to create model based animation. Due to all the plan changing and also one of my models being stolen I had to change my idea a couple of time until the point where I had no idea what I was doing anymore, however When I started to make this piece, even though I had no  idea as to what I really wanted to create at first I had a few ideas, which I kept in mind and they seemed to have clashed together and I ended up making none of them, finally at the end of not knowing what I wanted to create I end it up making a dragon because I was simply bored, and just thought maybe I should create a Dragon, which seemed to have been a good idea, well it was such a good idea when realizing I didn't have a story for the animation but i had a model, which was useless, next once again I ended up making the background and when i made the background I realized i should create a puppet and I had no story for the puppet however while creating it. I ended up coming up with an idea in which he goes treasure hunting in a mountain which in the process of being to greedy and wanting more he end up being caught by the treasures guardian (the Dragon) and he tries to run but he can't since he is in the mountain of the dragons,and he has nowhere to go, and it leads to his death and he gets eaten by the Dragon.

 I was quite pleased with how it turned out, it turned out with a story behind it, and not just random dragon walking around with no purpose, The only thing i would change if i had to do this piece again it would be the part where the Dragon is eating the Imp , I would change a few details and make the dragons mouth bloody and the Imp torn into pieces, however for know Im really happy with how it turned out.

I also had a look at a few dragon based clay animations, This is one of them , I was really interested in making a Dragon , but when looking at this It made me even more intersed , even though this piece of animation has no story behind it except it's about a dragon on a table and waving its wings that's all. but its still an interesting piece.

What I liked about this piece is the way the dragon is not already made, its formed in front of the viewer, however as i wanted mine to have a story behind I couldn't just throw two clay ball to form some yellow dragon which would've made my animation meaningless.

This is the dragon with feathers and broken wings i think...

well I have no idea why I looked at this piece , but the dragons in this animation is nothing like mine, they have feather while my Dragon has Scales, Dragons a featherless creatures just like Dinosaurs, and when Creating the dragon I kept this piece in mind that Dragons have no feathers, and I looked at this piece as some sort of lesson, The whole idea of this piece of animation is good, however too long nearly 5minutes long which makes it boring, comparing it to mine , mine is only 45second longs with title and credits, this piece has a lot going on in 5minutes, and when creating an animation piece it shouldn't have some much going on in one piece, it should be simple and tell a story a short story, that what makes my piece different from this piece of animation it tells a story a short story.

Peers FeedBack.

After posting it on padlet I then got a few people to comment what they thought of the animation, and below are the feedback I got from people.

 From Lyndsey I got a really positive feedback she was impressed with the the music the animation plus the models,

Katie commented on the creative side of the animation.

This two comment were by laure and Elliot , Elliot did see how much time i put into making the models and the set and everything else, on the other hand Laura commented on the Dragon and the Music really matching the video.

Dominic M commente was about the whole animation, and also the models.

Linda However seemed really impressed with the fire and the dragons,

From looking and reading all the comments I was really Happy with how everyone seemed impressed by the animation, I was waiting for some negative comment about why the Dragon was yellow and why was they so much stones on the ground, However no negative comments came up and I was really happy with the final feedback. a few people really like the Dragon and no wonder why, the dragon was really the master piece of the whole animation (not that I think it was ) it seems people really thinking that so I'm just putting they thoughts on here,  I was really glad that people found it interesting and brilliant as I was aiming for that, I was aiming for the animation to be funny or anything , I wanted the animation to tell a story to the viewer and I think I did achieved that from looking and reading the feedbacks. One Individual commented one the Dragon and said it blows fire, I was really looking forward to someone noticing it as it was something I spent a lot of time in achieving it and having someone comment on it and the comment being a positive one makes me realise the amount f time i spent paying attention to details is not a useless thing after all, even thought due to paying too much attention to details make my time management really poor, overall my animation impressed the people commented on it, and that something I would not change, and if I were to improve or change anything about this project it would be the lightening on the animation, I would use a different source of lightening to give the video more depth , to give the background more depth, as if I had a good source of lighting the background would've looked 100times better than it is now, and the models and shadowing would have been more interesting and if it a little depth the animation would have been more interesting to look at.

The background of the animation.