H P Lovecraft's Nightgaunts

So, what new film projects from the Loneanimator studio? Right now I'm struggling to finish a short video project before Christmas, which means I have only a week to go. This is yet another H P Lovecraft interpretation, namely my filmed version of his poem "Nightgaunts" from his sonnet cycle "Fungi From Yuggoth".

My main reason for doing this is because I found what I think is a very good recital of the text, done by John Hutch on YouTube. I got his permission to use the audio from his video, and recruited my long-suffering Lovecraftian victim Jimmy Bäckström to writhe about and balance on a stool in front of a green screen to appear to be carried off by the nasty nightgaunts. 

 Oh, the joys of amateur filmmaking.

The monsters in themselves are gargoyle-like flying creatures without any face or voice. They have oily black skin and barbed tails, with which they torment their victims by tickling them. I know.. It's Lovecraft's odd phobias wrapped up as monsters, again.

 I made only one nightgaunt puppet, but with three slightly different interchangeable heads. Nobody will probably notice the difference between them, but it's still there.

To make the puppet fly I built a primitive, but sufficient, flying rig attatched to the puppet's back via a screw. When the nightgaunts walk around on the ground, which they will in a brief clip, they won't need the rig, just the threaded holes in their feet for attaching them to my animation stage.

So far the results are not looking too shabby. I got some great tips from Peter Andrew Montgomery Scott to improve my keying techniques, as well as adding better motion blur. I'd better stop blogging and start animating now!