KLED Animations Presents: 'Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby'

The studio group project came to a close last week, I'm proud to present my team's animation trailer: Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby.

‘Project 6’ – an experiment to create the perfect killing machine, goes astray when their latest subject escapes from a secret laboratory located in the depths of the Earth.
Alone and confused, Project 6 is out of control! Who can stop this ‘baby’ now?



This is actually version 2 of our trailer which I feel works better than our initial version, that featured a narrative trailer voice. You can view the original here.

For a little bit of fun, we actually included some small Easter eggs for the competing studios including Gremlin Box Productions, B3D Studios and Creature Studios and their respective animations - so see if you can spot them, and be sure to check out their respective trailers. Unfortunately, we were not able to fit in Void Canvas Studio, Inspire Studios and Lucid Studios (apologies!) but be sure to check out their works too!

The main share of my work in this project included Concept art, modelling, texturing and rigging our Baby character, creating the Laboratory scene as well as general compositing including small special effects such as bubbles and smoke. My apologies that I couldn't give more frequent updates to this side of the project, as things were pretty tight on schedule. Hopefully, the documented Making Of publication below will make up for this, providing a behind-the-scenes look into much of the process my group and I worked on.

The Making of Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby

Here is an additional walk cycle I attempted with the Baby model. I tried to capture the baby's walk cycle by making him a little off balance and slowing his movements.



Where I've also presented a Turnaround of our Baby character for your viewing pleasure.



Feel free to head over to the KLED Animations blog for more details on our progression throughout the weeks.

Otherwise, the next and final project for the second year is soon approaching, entitled Transcription. More on that in the coming days.

KLED Animations Update #3

Phew - its been a while since my last post as things have been busy over at KLED Animations, so forgive the lengthy post! We're nearing the end of the project as we the enter the final days so everyone's been working overtime to get things done. I've mainly posted my progress at the studio blog, but I also want to keep things updated here.


The baby is fully rigged and skinned, complete with controls. He actually has three forms with a a normal form, a single chainsaw form, to a finale of a double chainsaw form.

Normal form

Single Chainsaw

Double Chainsaw


Front, Side and Back.



Chainsaw Model



The chainsaw animation is made similarly to the process of tank traps by using a nurbs circle as a path for the teeth to follow. Initially, I tried using a wire deformer which did not want to work for some reason, but eventually found the solution with the use of a mel script. Here I made made a quick experiment speeding up and slowing down the chainsaw animation. When it comes to animating the chainsaw fully, I'm hoping we can add some vibration to the chainsaw and perhaps motion blur when compositing.



I've also added the mouth interior to the baby, with some teeth and tongue. UVs are also laid out ready for texturing.




Created an initial set of face blendshapes to convey the facial expressions of the baby.



Made a quick test just experimenting with the facial blendshapes, so no subtle eye movements or blinks in this one.



And lastly, here are my initial attempts at texturing the baby focusing on the texture maps.






Head UV


Back to work! Meanwhile, be sure to check out the KLED Animations blog for info on the project.

Tremors (1990)

'The phones are dead, the roads are out... we're on our own!' - The 90s horror/comedy flick Tremors (1990) is a pleasant example of the classic B-movie genre.



The plot follows the strange deaths of residents and animals in the secluded settlement of the Nevada desert. Our heroes Valentine McKee and Earl Basset soon discover the cause to be from giant, underground wormlike creatures that are able to tunnel at great speeds. Cut-off from the outside world, the settlement is left to fend for themselves as they try to escape from the terror that lies below.



The underground creatures bear the hallmarks of 50s horror creatures reminiscent to the ants in Them! (1954) being overgrown mutated creatures - in this case, worms. This is further highlighted particularly when the cast begins to debate the origin of the creatures forming theories of atomic radiation and even space, to even considering naming the them only to come up with 'graboids' for some authentic B-movie dialogue.



Essentially, this is shining premise of the film, successfully walking between the fine line of comedy and horror, with amusing exchanges between the diverse set of characters, to rather genuinely nail-biting moments as the unseen worms race underground to devour hapless victims. It makes for a great combination that one critic suggests is guideline for these type of films in that you should 'care about your material, but don't lose your sense of humor' [1].

Overall, the original Tremors is full of charm in its B-movie plot and humour that is thoroughly enjoyable, where some critics lead to suggest that the film is 'the pinnacle of recent B-monster movies' [2]. Its popularity also led to several sequels and even a prequel, which unfortunately were not as successful. The trailer the original film sums up the plot quite nicely, complete with B-movie charm.

KLED Animations Update #2

Hot in production, our animation trailer for The Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby has been taking shape. We've approached this by identifying a hierarchy of props needed for key scenes and environments in our trailer, and delegated tasks respectively to form a clear list of objectives in mind.

With our tasks outlined for us, we needed to ensure a system of sharing and accessing each others' files was in place in order to work efficiently with production. As such, we've established a sharing system using Dropbox to sync our project files together, where each member also maintains a local backup to work from in case of any lost/corrupted files.

My main areas of focus were creating the Previs/Blocktest to further refine pacing and camera shots, Set Dressing the environments together with the modelled props as well as taking responsibility of the Baby himself from modelling to texturing.

Here is the Previs of our animation trailer, developing from our initial animatic.

Apologies for any inconsistencies with sound as the audio is not yet final.


My work-in-progress of our Chainsaw wielding baby, using the orthographic provided by studio team member Kin.





The nature of our characters exist in a very stylised world, consequently, he may look a little on the wide side at the moment, but I'm sure that once the head is in place the proportions will start to fit more naturally. The chainsaws will be modelled once the 'human' model of the body is in place. Its still a work in progress, but is hopefully headed in the right direction. See more after the link.

There's still much to do as we near the end of production, so wish us luck! You can keep track of our progress at KLED-Animations.blogspot.com.

Them! (1954)

Science fiction film, Them! (1954), was one of the first 'nuclear' monster movies featuring giant irradiated ants where it was also nominated for an Oscar in Special Effects.



The plot involves man's encounter with gigantic man-eating ants, having been mutated from the radiation of early atomic tests. As two winged ant Queens escape, it becomes a race against time to save mankind's place in the world, by finding and destroying the ants with their colonies before they can reproduce on a global scale.



The pacing of the film was surprisingly refreshing as the mystery begins right away with a mysterious lone wandering girl in a desert, with the investigation of peculiar 'crime' scenes. Even when the ants are finally revealed and our heroes destroy the nest, we soon find that it is only the beginning of the things to come in a desperate search to find the other remaining ants. Even the authorities and military convincingly appear to be doing their job rather than aimlessly running around in great displays as in previous films such as Invasion from Mars (1953).



From the wide array of environments, the film is certainly atmospheric with the harsh sandstorms of the desert to dense underground catacombs of the ant's nest. It soon becomes evident that the production values and special effects were impressive for the time period, with the huge lumbering ants being unforgettable with their slow deliberate movements and ominous clicking sounds of their mandibles, as well as plenty of ants even being set on fire.




Perhaps what makes Them! most intriguing is in the credibility of its fiction, as a world where atomic radiation has blighted the landscape and mutated its inhabitants doesn't seem too far off, particularly in the wake of the Atomic bomb and the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Additionally, the dangers of the gigantic ants seem plausible when given scientific understanding of the common ant, in that they breed at an alarmingly rate, while possessing the physical strength to lift 20 times their own body weight and the mental capacity to unite and work together as colonies [1]. Scale the size of the ant up and one can truly start to see the terrifying potential of gigantic ants if such a thing would ever to occur.



Overall, Them! is thoroughly enjoyable and engaging as a sci-fi shocker, being described as an essential classic of Cold War radiation scare films to being by far the best of the '50s cycle of creature features' when compared to similar releases such as The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). It undoubtedly held much influence over the genre with the ant's nest being reminiscent to Alien (1979) with the hive queen mentality and nest, as well as games such as Fallout 3 (2008) with a particular quest titled 'Those!' involving giant mutated ants, albeit, fire-breathing giant ants.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Behold, as Dracula returns in the Horror of Dracula (1958) - one of several films to be based on the novel of Dracula, with this being the first to be shot in colour.



Following his partner's death who fell victim to Dracula himself, the plot follows Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing in his bid to end the terror of Dracula once and for all. However, the bewitching powers of Dracula have already taken several women, who become helpless to resist Dracula eventually becoming the undead creatures of vampires themselves.



It was great to see the classic vampire back in action when compared to the rather saturated 'Twilight' genre of vampires about, from the iconic sleeping tomb of coffins to the unforgettable weapons of a wooden stake and crucifix. Young Christopher Lee does an exceptional performance in capturing the ominous and terrifying presence of Count Dracula, never letting his fangs and cape dominate his performance [1].



From the dark looming shadows of a cemetery and castle, to the colourful sets of the noble classes interiors, the contrast of gothic horror and aristocratic nobility provides an iconic and captivating feel to the environments that are brimming with atmosphere.



Intriguingly, the original films release prompted an Adult-X rating with the seductive biting of vulnerable women, to reactions describing the film as 'one of the most revolting horror films I have seen in years' according to a Daily Express reviewer. Whereas in today's film standards, the film has been given a 12A containing 'mild bloody horror', so it is rather interesting to note how audiences' reception to films have changed over time.



Overall, while the pacing may be a little long witted for modern audiences, the Horror of Dracula deserves recognition as one of finest horror movies of British cinema with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing's standout performances.