SCAD 2026 Senior stop-motion short Film

Directed by Paige Meakin

Costume fabrication:

Concept art by Paige Meakin

Driver Final Costume

Process Picture

Both the pants and the shirt started out as draping pieces, pinned and baste-stitched together. This allowed for quick changes in the fit and cut of the clothing to then create a master pattern. Once the final pisces where sewn wiere was added to the sleeves, cuffs, and rim of the garments to provide stability for the animator. For the pants, an internal interfacing structure provided a base for the wrinkles in the pants. This creates a sense of realistic draping and maintains a semblance of continuity through different shots. Underneath the shirt and pants, a mesh leotard served as an underlayer to sew the shirts and pants into. This helps the clothing stay in place and gives me more control of how the shirt lies on the puppet's plastic torso.

Bedding and Quilt:

Concept art by Paige Meakin

Final Shot

For the flashback shots for the short film, a warped sense of perspective was created. This moment uses forced perspective to generate an uncanny dreamlike quality. For this shot in the bedroom, the quilt feels uniquely expansive and warped. This was achieved by curving and distorting the patchwork pattern on the quilt, and further enhanced by draping the fabric. This was first tested on paper and scrap fabric to gauge the size decrease needed in each row of the quilt. From here, the best iteration was tweaked and turned into a proper-to-scale digital Pattern which was once more tested on fabric.

Ex Final Costume

Wig fabrication:

Driver Wig

Ex Wig

The Main character's wig was first sculpted and cast in plastic. The base was adjusted to accommodate the fabric buildup and allow for the inclusion of basic rigging . Individual layers of fabric where then cut, glued and painted.

Process videos

During the shower scene of the short, the usual fabric wigs were replaced with new embroidery yarn wigs.

The hair was methodically glued, strand by strand, on top of a plastic wig cap. Several different treatments were tested to see what would give the yarn a long-lasting "wet" look. Got2b glue gloss hairspray was chosen as the final treatment.

Mockups

Concept art by Paige Meakin

Down shot Animation:

Guts Fabrication:

The Ex´s wig was built up on a ptg vacuformed wig cap. Using a chevent clay sculpt as reference the base was built up with propoxy. Layers of fabric and blackfoil where added to create volume.

Wet Wigs

Process Picture

Both the pants and the shirt started out as draping pieces, pinned and baste-stitched together. This allowed for quick changes in the fit and cut of the clothing to then create a master pattern. Once the final pisces where sewn wiere was added to the sleeves, cuffs, and rim of the garments to provide stability for the animator. For the pants, an internal interfacing structure provided a base for the wrinkles in the pants. This creates a sense of realistic draping and maintains a semblance of continuity through different shots. Underneath the shirt and pants, a mesh leotard served as an underlayer to sew the shirts and pants into. This helps the clothing stay in place and gives me more control of how the shirt lies on the puppet's plastic torso.

Guts were reimagined using textile elements such as fabric, yarn, rope, and cotton to match the textural style of the film. A lot of experimentation was done to see what type of tissuey textures could be achieved within our style and time.

Rather than a pursuit of anatomical accuracy, the guts were created with visual appeal and interest in the forefront. Airbrushing was used to give the different elements some realistic shading, helping to sell the illusion of them being organs. Finally Latex and silicone were used as a final treatment on some of the elements to give a fatty and skin-like finish to them.

Silicone work

Latex

Airbrush

Rolling backgrounds and Projection:

Rear projection was used for driving shots with moving backgrounds. Beginning with a 3D mockup made to explore a tile system. The landscape was split into 3 different sections of distances, which moved at different speeds to achieve a parallax effect.

Mountains and rock formations were made using insulation foam, painted, and dressed to achieve a semi-realistic look. Grass and bushes were created using a variety of ropes, yarns, and other textile elements. All elements were tested in motion to determine the level of detail needed for the tiles in relation to the speed at which they were moving.

A variety of shots in the film leaned into unconventional effects and transitions which were best tackled with a vertical animation set up. Utilizing a raised glass surface over green screen for the paper tear effect and the hair animation.

Concept art by Paige Meakin

Responsible for guts and organ fabrication

Scale test

Responsible for wigs

Responsible for animation