From Hotdogs to Stop-Motion

Hey! It’s been a while since I did a proper post here. Life has been a bit hectic, as I’m sure it is for almost everyone these days. The animation business has taken a major nose dive, and my wife and I have both been affected since that’s how we make most of our income. I was hoping to direct again on the second season of Nickelodeon’s Rock Paper Scissors, but unfortunately, the studio decided to outsource the entire production and all of the jobs for season 2 to Canada.

So, that left me with some free time and the need to figure out what to do with my life. Thankfully, I do have my job as an author/illustrator, which is currently keeping us afloat. But this may come as a shock to some of you— it doesn’t pay well enough for me only to do books, especially if my wife isn’t working a full-time animation job. I wish it did, but I have no control over how well my books sell. All I can do is make what I think works and hope for the best.

You’re probably thinking at this point, what does this have to do with hotdogs and stop-motion? Trust me, it does. I just had to give you a bit of the backstory first for it all to make sense.

Here we go. Hot dogs!

One day, I was trying to figure out an alternative to working in animation when I had a brilliant idea— I’LL BUY A HOTDOG CART AND SELL HOTDOGS! This would allow me to set my own hours and still be able to travel around the country when needed to do my author visits. Plus, it would get me out of the house, where I’d be able to meet new people and, I’m sure, get all kinds of new ideas for future stories.

But then I started to consider all the logistics of starting a food business, such as health codes and other business-y stuff. This is always a big part of my creative process, where I try to talk myself out of whatever happens to be my latest great idea. I was about to abandon the whole hot dog cart idea when I had an even better idea!

I’LL HAVE A HOTDOG CART THAT SELLS FELTED CHARACTERS LIKE HOT DOGS, TATER TOTS, AND WHATEVER OTHER FUN FOODS I COULD IMAGINE!

I was inspired and quickly sketched out some characters.

Now, all I needed to do was learn to needle felt. So, I ordered a beginner needle felting kit online, watched some how-to videos on YouTube, and started making stuff! I was inspired and on a super creative bender. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, and no matter how many times I stabbed myself, I refused to wear those little finger guards. I needed to feel the felt.

But none of what I felted was hotdog cart-themed. This was in October, and I was more inspired by Halloween than hotdogs. I needle-felted everything from black cats to carnivorous plants to witches and vampires. When I finished one, I’d dive straight into a new one. Each one more elaborate than the previous.

This was the first thing I felted. Inspired by my cat Cinders.

Here are some of the many things I needle-felted. The snoopy I gave to Jeannie Schulz as a gift for having me at the Schulz musuem.

It was at this point that I quickly realized two things. One, I loved needle felting. And two, I wasn’t interested in mass-producing the same one over and over again. Which meant I wasn’t going to be making enough hotdog-themed foods to sell out of my hotdog cart (maybe one day).

As I felted more characters, I started to think about ways to make them poseable and change their expressions. Making them poseable was fairly simple. I added some bendable wire armature and felted over it.

This is my vampire’s wire base, along with my initial sketch.

But changing the expressions was a bit more tricky. That is until I discovered some tiny rare earth magnets at Harbor Freight and Tool and had another brilliant idea!

I’d insert a tiny magnet under the felt where the mouths would go and then attach different cut-out felt mouth shapes with a bit of wire glued to the back. This worked perfectly.

The first felted character I tested this on was a felted version of myself.

Felt James with his assortment of changeable mouths and a prop.

I also gave him movable brows by gluing the felt to brass tacks.

Once I had Felt James working, the next logical thing to do was to animate him. Which meant I’d need to learn how to do stop-motion. So, I went online to do some research. I found a simple app called Stop Motion Studio Pro ($6) that works on an iPad and allows you to use your phone as the camera. I watched some YouTube videos on setting up some basic lighting and another that showed how to build a makeshift stop-motion rig from two sodering kit holders, which I bought at Harbor Freight and Tool for under ten bucks. (I’ve since upgraded to a proper stop-motion rig that I found online, but it cost a lot more.)

My DIY animation Rig.

Then, I started animating.

I started with a simple movie to test the interchangeable mouths, moving eyebrows, and poseable hands.

Next came a holiday greeting with some recorded audio.

Like before, each time I finished one, I tried to make the next one even better. This led to new felted puppets and new ideas.

Butternut was my next felted stop-motion puppet.

After Butternut, I decided to bring a bear that I had previously felted to life. So I made a new one that could be fully posed, and this time, I even attached their head with magnets so that it could be rotated or removed if need be.

Gilmore the bear

And this is where things really took off. I started building full-on sets out of cardboard and turning my living room into my stop-motion studio.

Here are some of my sets.

I’m hoping to finish a short film about Gilmore. Here are some early test scenes I did to work out the kinks in my production process and put Gilmore’s puppet rig through the paces to see if it can do what I need it to. It’s all a work in process.

I have no idea where all this will lead. It hasn’t solved the issue I had that started me on this journey: finding a new job and making money. But it has kept me from falling into a pit of despair and inspired me to come up with a handful of new characters and ideas that may one day lead to something amazing!

Thanks for reading.

-James