Genevieve’s Build - #2
Welcome back! Judging by the big number in the title you can probably already tell, but this is the second blog post regarding Cold Blood. A quick catchup: I’m making my own stop motion film, which I hope to expand into a series of films. This is a huge passion project of mine that I’ve been developing over my college career. Check out the first blog post to catch up on the mood of this world I’m building. I’ll also be posting more spoiler-free details about the premise and setting on this blog, so stay tuned.
Building Genevieve
Character Development, Design, and Fabrication
Let’s get started on Genevieve! As mentioned in my first post, I took a class on stop motion this past semester that really aided me in this entire process of character development, design, and fabrication. While I focused on Benni for this class, Genevieve was still being developed alongside. Unfortunately I didn’t do as good of a job at documenting Genevieve’s build as Benni’s, but I learned my lesson!
Designing Genevieve
Genevieve, from the start of the very first Cold Blood screenplay draft, has been a central character to the story. She acts as an observer of Bristlecone, our window into the world. She works as a receptionist at the Bristlecone Police Department, where she is largely ignored and disregarded by everyone else. The days are slow and boring, and so Genevieve can’t help but observe every little thing there is to see. Benni is the most interesting character to her. Benni is highly respected and reputable in Bristlecone, and yet, Genevieve suspects there’s more than meets the eye with her. The mystery that surrounds Benni is something incredibly intriguing to Genevieve. Benni and Genevieve both parallel eachother too. They are both women in the workplace, and they cope with the poor treatment and disregard they face in very different ways.
Because of this parallel, I knew I wanted Genevieve to contrast Benni as visually as she did narratively. While Benni is dressed in a monochrome, fitted suit, Genevieve dons warmer colors and softer textures. Her cream, oversized sweater gives her a much different silhouette from Benni, which she pairs with a brown, frill-trimmed skirt. She has long, ginger hair and rosy cheeks, further contrasting Benni.
The Wintergrin mint tin Genevieve holds in the illustration is a remnant of an earlier screenplay for the film. Perhaps foreshadowing for what happens after the events of this film…
Armature, Padding, & First Face
I built the same type of armature for Genevieve as I did for Benni. When wrapping her, I gave her an inverted triangular body shape. I didn’t worry about padding her upper legs too much since she's wearing a long circle skirt.
My first attempt at Genevieve’s face came out too cute. It immediately felt a bit uncanny to me. Her big eyelashes strayed her from the worrisome look I was going for, and her head was a bit too close to Benni’s head shape. The skin color was a little more pink than I had pictured as well.
Second Face
So I took to making another head. She still has those round eyes, but her skin tone is more balanced and her head is more square than round. Once I nailed the head down, I moved on to the hair. I used super glue to attach the hair to the head, though I’d recommend using Elmer’s glue since I had to go over the parts where glue had seeped out from underneath with orange acrylic. The right amount of Elmer’s glue dries clear rather than leaving a crispy residue.
At this point in this process, I contemplated her hair color. I imagined her having darker hair, and when that didn’t feel right, I tried touches of black in ginger hair. I end up discarding this idea once I comb out the yarn.
Her eyebrows, mouth, and pupils are attached with museum wax. The yarn on the eyebrows has been fraying a ton for Benni and Genevieve, so for the actual animation, I’ll probably end up using a different material like paper or clay.
The Costume
This is her costume!
I found a cream cardigan for Barbie dolls at a flea market. I chose to use this miniature cardigan since I wanted the knit size to scale down to 1:6 scale properly.
I really love when you can see the imperfections in stop motion, it makes it feel more handmade and authentic to me. For this reason, I chose to do a visible whip stitch rather than an invisible stitch to sew the front of the cardigan shut.
The skirt is just a basic circle skirt pattern I drafted. It’s made of upcycled fabric I had planned to use for the coat in the original illustration. The skirt is gathered in a waistband that the sweater covers. I found this scrap lace laying around in the costume workshop at my college, so I used that as the frilly trim for the skirt.
Facial Touch Ups
Under the lights in the costume shop, I realized I had painted Genevieve’s scleras way too bright. The eyeliner wasn’t thick enough either. I went in with a more muted white and painted over the scleras, then used some black to line her eyes again. She also has a bit of brown eyeshadow and blush, both done with acrylic paint.
Now here’s Genevieve so far! I brushed out her hair with a fine-tooth comb and removed the black strands. I’d recommend to those fabricating puppet hair to brush out the yarn before attaching it to the scalp with glue. I also used some solid beige cotton as skin for her arms and legs and added a bit of light in her eyes. The next steps are to complete her boots, hands, and coat.
