Armikrog Fabrication

Last year I worked as an intern at Pencil Test Studios and had an awesome time making stuff for Armikrog. Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield are the dynamic duo behind this fun and quirky stop motion point-and-click adventure game that released a few months ago. I was able to build a ton of stuff that actually made it on screen and it was so much fun working with those guys. Since the game has been out for a while I think I can safely post some of the things I worked on without ruining things for most people.

This is just some minor prop stuff first. 

This is the rug that you find Pea under in the green half of the 50/50 room. So fuzzy.

 These are two different scales of the Declaration of IndependAnts that Thomas JeffersAnt is holding.

I don't remember why we needed two scales but those tiny stamps were a pain to make. The paper is made of painted foil and the ribbons are lined with wire so they can be animated.

I made a square version of Tommy to so some replacement animation for a gag or something, but I don't know if that made it in.

Here is a good look at the Wheely Birds that get chased around by the Mongrel. Their wheels really roll.

This is the mini version of the Mongrel who is seen in the into. The Mini Mongrel is the star of the window scenes where he chases the Wheely Birds.

This guy is the Squarely Beast. You meet him early on and he is a big help. He is basically a big shaggy square cow.

Here are some shots of Tower 1. They wanted the exterior to reflect the patterning and themes of the interior levels, but the proportions are obviously skewed to make it more visually interesting. It's pretty fun to try to figure out which room is which from the game.

  Here is a detail shot of the exterior of the Emerald Room on Tower 1. The crystal on the top was really fun to make. It is pieces of plastic packaging from some trash that I cut up, glued together and painted so that it looks like a real translucent crystal with hard facets and everything.

This antenna thingy on the top was made with a bunch of pieces from that Mouse Trap game. Most of them I killed with the heat gun and covered in Sculpey though.

Here are some shots of Tower 3. It had tank tracks to move it around that were really fun to make. They were mostly kit bashed from and old lamp and a broken CD deck with bits of Sculpey.

I guess I don't have pictures of Tower 2, but it was pretty cool because it had a working Accordian Room and some of the other rooms hanging from the branches by ribbon and the whole thing was up on claw feet. 

 This was probably my favorite thing to make in the whole game. It is one of the little hidden surprises the guys put in there. They basically just showed me the regular Zip Kicker and said make an outrageous, Big Daddy Ed Roth inspired, hot rod version of this.

It had to be modified in the game because it was a little too outrageous, but here is the original in all its glory.

 Yes, it does actually have working headlights and tail lights.

The shifter moves back and forth and has a tiny Mongrel skull on it.

The spoke wheel really spins.

Plush foam interior

It even has a tiny little serpentine belt.
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There was a bunch of other stuff that I made that I don't have pictures of. If I can get back over there I will try to take more pics and post them. Hope you all enjoy getting a closer look at this beautiful game that I was able  to be a part of!

Dyno Plushie

In September I foolishly decided that it was a good idea to start a project with 3 week old baby. I wanted to make a plush toy out of Dyno the rhinoceros beetle character from my senior film. It was for her so I guess the time and added strees was justified and now she has an awesome and meaningful first toy.
This is the sculpture I made of him earlier. It was perfect reference.

I started off by making a paper sculpture out of cardstock and tape in the scale that I wanted. I forgot to take a picture of that, but then I took it apart again to have pieces for a pattern and cut out my fabric. 

 This micro fleece/short minky fabric is really hard to find without those dumb dimple things in in, but I finally found some and the color was pretty perfect too.

Then I stitched together all the little pieces and turned them inside out. The little leg pieces I had to hand stitch because this fuzzy fabric is just too much to handle on little tiny corners.

 I did a bad thing. For the legs I decided to cut up my honors cords. I hope I'm not disgracing tradition or anything, but it was just the perfect thing and since Dyno rode with me during graduation I thought it was appropriate. I tied little knots in the ends and glued the tip to prevent fraying.

Attaching the cords to the leg pieces was also super tedious hand stitching.

I started filling the pieces with fluff and I stitched a piece thick plastic grocery bag into the wing casing pieces so that they make a crinkly noise and then hand stitched everything closed.

The only thing left to do was to hand stitch all the pieces together and do the eyes.

 For the eyes I basically just did a bunch of stitches all in the same area until they piled up and kinda look like sloppy embroidery.

 The wing casings aren't stitched closed on the center back line so they kinda are like pockets where you can put your hand in or whatever.

 I think she likes it. Hopefully it has some little features that will interest her like the crinkly back, fluffy pockets, and the dangly rope legs and give her a good variety of sensory stimulation.