Friday, May 18, 2012

Making Abney & Teal

Here are just a few photos from the making of Abney & Teal. Once the episode production line started churning I generally forgot to take many photos so it's just a tiny snapshot of year one of four years work by the whole Ragdoll team.


My desk at Ragdoll studios in Stratford upon Avon. I must have been working late on Abney's hut.


Set construction from my painted parts was a model of simplicity.


An early experiment with a rod-puppet Abney. That's Tahra Zafar on the right, who made all the real-world puppets for the show. (www.tahrazafar.com)


Teal in construction, before her dress was made less "tasteful."


Original Poc-Poc. Eventually they were re-built in the computer using the textures from these puppets. (The style of their animation was developed from some earlier footage of me moving little home-made clay versions with magnets in them. This gave them the motion-blurred shuddery feel they sometimes have.)


Photographing Teal and Abney from a gazillion angles.


Another model of simplicity. The amazing Davide Arnone (www.davidearnone.co.uk) and I spent three weeks (seriously, three weeks) adjusting Abney's ears because they didn't come out right in the photos. I think there were something like four positions per single ear for every one of thirty-six angles of the head.


Another incarnation of my desk at Ragdoll.


Tim van Eyken in his socks.
(At Pinewood studios experimenting with Bop sounds).

13 comments:

Q said...

Wow! Thanks for sharing these!

Joel Stewart said...

You're welcome. I'm not sure I'm actually allowed to put stuff like this up, but it's helping to ease my transition back in to working at home...

PS. As a general note I should probably point out that it isn't Tim playing the Tuba for Bop in the final shows (pictured is a Euphonium and a bass flute anyway). I think Andrew McCrorie Shand got a session player in for the final music.

Rachel said...

Wonderful! Love Abney & Teal - Thankyou for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Great program you have, my 2 year old loves Abney and Teal

BalensArchitect said...

What a delightful creation for the whole family to enjoy, we all love to be swept away by this program. Please please please make some wooden Poc-Poc sets available soon!

Iain said...

Neep leaves my 3-year-old son in absolute fits of giggles. Love it, thank you!

Emma said...

We love it too, I made my son a Neep and my mum made a huge Bop for him to climb on! Lovely to have a small insight into how it's made! Thank you for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Very interesting, thanks. Your show keeps my 5-yr-old girl and 2-yr-old boy equally mesmerised. They laugh hysterically every now and then (especially the Radio episode) and they can watch 10 episodes in a row on catch-up (if I'm not paying attention!). To be honest, it is starting to drive me nuts :)

grzestel said...

Kinga 8 years old and piter 2 years old loves this show. They can watch it all the time. Krakow. Poland.

Anonymous said...

we want poc poc too our son loves abney and teal

Tess said...

Please please please tell me you're working on some new episodes. My children (and I) love Abney and Teal so much. I have promised my six year old son that I would ask for more. :-)

Unknown said...

I really love Abney and Teal,my 18 month old son love it,as Ido too,I love the stories and charactersthank you for creating it x

Gwen said...

I’m in high school and I still love this show! Although the pictures on your blog don’t work/don’t show up on my iPad so I can’t see them