The Animated Adventures Of Edward Lear - A Detailed Blog

Due to the recent success of The Animated Adventures Of Edward Lear, I feel that I should write a detailed account on my involvement in the project. I hope that it will be of interest to someone out there! A lot of this is from the report from last year but it will obviously be a little more informative. 

I began stitching the curtains with a sewing machine, but I found that it didn't take to the material well. Also the cotton broke in the machine several times; so I switched to hand sewing. It was a longer process but I knew I would be happier with the final result this way.

I chose to make the costume for "The Beaded Woman". She needed to be plumped out, for this I stuffed plastic sheeting with stuffing and wrapped this around the puppet. Next I hand stitched a skirt; I placed a piece of wire in the waistband to make it easier to remove when needed. Because of the way I had wrapped the stuffing around the puppet I had to sew the top onto it. The beads were stitched onto the material, then the sleeves were slipped over the arms and stitched into place at the shoulders. To hide the stitches I decided to add a shawl, this was pinned into place so this could be removed with ease when required. The necklace and the ruffled collar also helped to hide the unhemmed neckline.

Puppet made by Naomi

Several books were needed for the Edward Lear poem. A suggestion was made to make them out of Fimo or Sculpey, but I felt this would ruin the overall look of the animation. I decided that leather bound books would look more professional. I hand stitched 20 in various sizes and colours. The pages were tea stained so that they looked slightly aged.

The waves for "The Man In A Boat" were based on the infamous "Japanese wave" but with a Victorian twist. They were lazer cut. Originally they were going to be plain blue, but for me they were too plain. I added white edges; which worked in our favour as without the white outline they wouldn't have been visible against the backdrop.

Finally, for the animating I chose to animate "Man Of the Nile". A few props had been made for this by myself and other members of the group, but in the end the background was kept simple by just using the wooden shutters. I made a quick top and sleeves to modify the basic outfit. The scarf hides the seams. In hindsight I wish I had used brown plasticine to hold the file in his hand, as the blue tack wasn't edited out in post production.

Puppet made by Naomi

Finally, we needed an intro and an outro;

Introduction:
We are all gathered here, to watch the work of Edward Lear
We hope it will fill you with great cheer
The nonsense it portrays,
Will leave you dazzled for days
The work of Edward Lear

Finale:
There was a theatre group from Stoke
Who loved to entertain the folk
Our show is now done
So off we must run
That flamboyant old group from Stoke