I worked as a story artist on the incredible Nickelodeon stop motion series The Tiny Chef Show. The amazing team at ShadowMachine did wonders fabricating Tiny Chef’s miniature tree-stump world. It was a fun challenge figuring out how to use the sets and puppets in new ways, and exploring how to convey ideas clearly to such a young audience.
Understanding that props and sets all need to be fabricated in stop motion, some scenes were about exploring as much character as I could through minimal (or no) cuts and simple prop setups. Tricky at times, but also creatively quite fun.
Another challenge was in truly understanding how to best pose puppets, and really convey chaos around them without needing to alter them in certain ways. In the Poi episode, there’s a big oily mess, and it quickly became a fun game of selling the action without needing to make giant changes to the sets.