The problem with Alfie... and further pigeon progress.

Lately, I've been really irritated by the fact my astronaut character refuses to stand (possible due to the weight of his head) and that he's practically imposable without his paint cracking. It appears I've practically wasted my time making what's come to be a plasticine figurine that can't be animated.

The main reasons behind this brief failure comes down to:

• The lack of paper padding and exposed areas on the limbs.
• The weight of the character's head.
• The fact that the silver paint didn't strengthen the astronaut's feet, but weaken them and leave the edges folding upwards.

Because of all these issues that occurred with my potential character, I' am going to abandon the Alfie the Astronaut and place my focus completely on finishing the pigeon and getting that animated with the Red Bull can. I have actually produced some test animations of the Red Bull can that will be uploaded on Tuesday once I have access to Final Cut Pro in the Vis Com studio.

Below is a photo of the progress I' am making with covering my skeleton with plasticine. This time, instead of making the mistake of filling the body with plasticine, I' am leaving the body hollow so as to stay light and poseable.

It's becoming quite a laborious and technically difficult process which is taking up my time. I' am reverting back to my problem of making things look perfect, but at this stage I' am just trying to get a basic model of a pigeon. I'll then animate it outside (where I can also capture footage of grass/trees blowing and water running) to create the 20 second animation more life like.

Anyway, here's the pigeon so far:

I hope to have him complete by the end of

tomorrow night, just so I can start work on

animating him on Tuesday and have a finished

animation ready for the Canimation competition

on Wednesday.

From Wednesday through to

Friday and for some days the week after, I

plan to give myself an Adobe Flash crash-

course, which will enable me to hopefully

become confident in talking to the college

technicians a little more. I know who to ask,

so it might just be a matter of emailing them in

advance first.