Classes #25-28: Wigs, Drawing a Werewolf, and More Animation Learning (Stan Winston School Diary #18)

A month long overdue on this diary!

Wigs

Remember how I said long ago I liked the Stan Winston School offerings because you can get in touch with a teacher? I was really intent on tracking (hair joke!) down synthetic hair. Connie Grayson Criswell, the instructor for the wig class, provided a few ideas for places to get it:

His & Her Hairgoods (http://www.hisandher.com)

Nigel’s Beauty Emporium (https://www.nigelbeauty.com)

Let me tell you, she has worked on…lots of cool flicks. Inception, Avengers: Endgame, X-Men…a great person to learn from.

My synthetic wig was like basic sewing you might have learned at school if you are Midwestern like me. They say your first wig takes the longest. I sat for two afternoons sewing, sewing, sewing. Ta-da! The wig. I had to buy string for weaving/wigs, synthetic hair wefts, and a wig cap. I am still in the process of finding a wig cap I like the fit more on, but the wig turned out excellent otherwise. I had some experience with styling and cutting wigs before. This class reinforced whatever I learned before and helped with learning how to sew my own wefts. The goal is to use my wig knowledge with selling wigs online and styling people for my live action films. I know she prefers human hair and has valid reasons, but if I may, synthetic can be pretty awesome. Synthetic hair I have been practicing with styling is heat resistant and looks very real. She does go into tips if you buy lesser quality synthetic wigs and need to tone down the shine. If you love styling hair, you will really enjoy this course.

“Pix or it didn’t happen.” Below, ladies and gentlemen!

The wig process.

The wig outcome.

Other classes I took:

Drawing a Werewolf

Part of the design basics classes, this reinforced shadowing, sketching, and highlighting. I am used to viewing drawing as art. The class discusses how science plays into art through keeping fictional creatures anatomically correct with human and animal structures.

Animation

More stop motion classes! These are five hours in general, guys. Remember, heavy duty stuff.

The past month’s selections for my learning were:

Stop Motion 2: Set Design

Stop Motion 3: Lighting

These skills blend into 2D and 3D animation. An example crossover skill: how you color objects closer and farther away.

Animation is very time consuming, and learning it is a process. I recommend you space out the animation classes under the filmmaking pathway to really process what you learning and try things out at home. I sampled a bit of the lighting with salt and pepper shakers at home on my iPhone camera versus the iPad camera. Try using objects you already have around before hitting up the stop motion animation to practice.