Animation Ch 2:Maya Jaal, Alcohol Bottles, and Cassette Memories
Where wireframes, experimental films, and nostalgic objects become moving poetry
Return to the Digital Jaal
After years of hand-drawn animation adventures, I found myself returning to MAYA after a four-year hiatus. There's something both exciting and intimidating about reopening software that once felt like second nature—like revisiting a childhood home where the furniture has been subtly rearranged.
Maya is literally made up of a Jaal (wireframe)—a perfect metaphor for how I felt approaching it again: seeing the underlying structure of something once familiar, now slightly foreign. The excitement of rediscovery mixed with the stress of looming workloads created that distinctive creative tension that seems to follow me through every animation phase.
Our first assignment was deceptively simple: model a plane. Not just any plane—I chose the Sopwith Camel, that iconic British WWI biplane with its distinctive hump-shaped fuselage (hence the "camel" moniker). There's something romantically anachronistic about recreating early aviation technology using cutting-edge 3D software, a conversation across centuries through the language of design.
Starting with low-poly modeling, I gradually built up the Sopwith's characteristic form. I added an image plane for reference and experimented with lighting to capture that weathered canvas-and-wood aesthetic. Working in Maya after so long reminded me of another animation truth: Technical skills may hibernate, but they never truly disappear—they just need gentle reawakening.
(Sopwith camel -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel )The Bottles Abstract Revelation
Sometimes the most significant creative breakthroughs happen when you're thrown completely off-balance. Two weeks into a project, we suddenly learned we'd be participating in an experimental animation course with visiting students from the Royal College of Art. This unexpected collaboration would push me far outside my comfort zone in the best possible way.
igital Jaal
After years of hand-drawn animation adventures, I found myself returning to MAYA after a four-year hiatus. There's something both exciting and intimidating about reopening software that once felt like second nature—like revisiting a childhood home where the furniture has been subtly rearranged.
Maya is literally made up of a Jaal (wireframe)—a perfect metaphor for how I felt approaching it again: seeing the underlying structure of something once familiar, now slightly foreign. The excitement of rediscovery mixed with the stress of looming workloads created that distinctive creative tension that seems to follow me through every animation phase.
Our first assignment was deceptively simple: model a plane. Not just any plane—I chose the Sopwith Camel, that iconic British WWI biplane with its distinctive hump-shaped fuselage (hence the "camel" moniker). There's something romantically anachronistic about recreating early aviation technology using cutting-edge 3D software, a conversation across centuries through the language of design.
Starting with low-poly modeling, I gradually built up the Sopwith's characteristic form. I added an image plane for reference and experimented with lighting to capture that weathered canvas-and-wood aesthetic. Working in Maya after so long reminded me of another animation truth: Technical skills may hibernate, but they never truly disappear—they just need gentle reawakening.
(Sopwith camel -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel )
The Bottles Abstract Revelation
Sometimes the most significant creative breakthroughs happen when you're thrown completely off-balance. Two weeks into a project, we suddenly learned we'd be participating in an experimental animation course with visiting students from the Royal College of Art. This unexpected collaboration would push me far outside my comfort zone in the best possible way.
The assignment seemed simple: create animation using objects of our choice. I selected a bottle and a clothespin—ordinary objects with just enough character to build a narrative around. True to form, my mind immediately started constructing a story, plotting out each beat of my animation.
Then came the conversations with Ben and the other RCA students that changed everything. They encouraged me to venture into abstraction—territory that felt as foreign to me as another language. Narrative had always been my safety net, my default approach to making sense of visual elements. Abandoning it felt like stepping off a cliff.
I set up an impromptu studio in my room, borrowed Emil's impressive collection of bottles (the empty alcohol variety, I should specify), and began shooting. Even then, I couldn't fully let go—a skeletal narrative framework still guided my process.
When I showed my work-in-progress to the group, they pushed me further: "Don't reveal the form of the bottles." This suggestion was both liberating and terrifying. Without form or narrative, what was left? Where would I find meaning?
The breakthrough came during editing, when I found myself increasingly distracted by the ambient sounds around me—footsteps in the corridor, pages turning, distant conversations. Instead of fighting these distractions, I embraced them. What if my animation could illustrate not a linear story but the sensory experience of my day?
This realization changed everything. My animation "yaD A" (that's "A Day" backwards) became a visual representation of my daily emotions and activities—sleeping, relaxing, watching movies—all expressed through abstract bottle imagery. No literal storytelling, just feeling and impression.
The response was positive, though Sekhar (predictably) showed little interest. Having the legendary R.L. Mistry attend our presentation added an unexpected layer of validation. Most importantly, thanks to Anna, Ben, and Sarah, I finally understood abstract films—or at least began to. This taught me another crucial lesson: Sometimes the most powerful animations don't tell you a story—they make you feel one.
Creature Comforts and Stop-Motion Experiments
Between digital models and experimental abstractions, I found time for my enduring love of stop-motion. There's something magically tangible about stop-motion that no digital technique has quite replicated for me—the tactile connection to materials, the physicality of moving objects incrementally between frames.
I created a test rig for a creature character intended for a collaborative stop-motion film. Even just testing the rig on my laptop brought that character to life in a way that feels different from digital animation. In stop-motion, you're not just creating the illusion of movement—you're documenting the actual physical journey of an object through space and time, captured one frame at a time.
This hands-on quality of stop-motion provides an important counterbalance to digital work. It reminds me that animation isn't just about technical execution but about breathing life into the inanimate. Whether that's done through sophisticated software or by physically manipulating objects doesn't matter—the magic happens in the spaces between frames.
Cassette Nostalgia: Animating Memory
Even when I'm home, supposedly relaxing, I find myself wanting to animate everything. Some objects seem to demand movement, their stillness almost an unnatural state that needs correction.
This was particularly true of my parents' old cassette tapes. Growing up, I never shared their musical taste, so these colorful plastic rectangles were more visual and tactile objects to me than vessels for sound. I played with them in unconventional ways, fascinated by the mechanical possibilities of their spools and cases.
Years later, these cassettes became animation subjects. Despite being functionally obsolete, I couldn't bear to throw them away—especially my two favorites, distinctive for their vibrant colors. There was something poignant about giving new life through animation to objects designed to store and replay sound but now rendered silent by technological progress.
The resulting animation "Cassettes" captures not just the physical movement of these artifacts but something more elusive—the animation of memory itself. Each frame contains not just the object but the ghost of my childhood curiosity, my complicated relationship with my parents' music, and the strange melancholy of obsolete technology.
I had so many additional ideas for these cassettes, plans for elaborate animations that never materialized because other projects demanded attention. This taught me yet another animation lesson: Some of the most meaningful animation ideas remain unrealized—not failures, but possibilities held in perpetual potential.
Between Frames, Between Worlds
Looking back at this phase of my animation journey—spanning digital modeling, experimental abstraction, stop-motion, and nostalgic object animation—I'm struck by how animation continues to serve as both technical practice and emotional processing.
Each project, regardless of medium or approach, became an opportunity to explore not just how things move but what that movement means. Whether rebuilding a historic aircraft in digital space, finding abstraction in bottle forms, rigging creatures for stop-motion, or breathing new life into obsolete technology, the fundamental question remained the same: how does movement create meaning?
This period taught me to embrace animation's full spectrum, from narrative to abstract, digital to physical, planned to spontaneous. The technical skills matter enormously, but they ultimately serve something more significant—the human need to see still things move, to find life in the inanimate, to create meaning through motion.
And sometimes, the most profound animations happen when we let go of our preconceptions about what animation should be—when we allow bottles to become emotions, cassettes to become memories, and technical exercises to become personal expressions.
In the next chapter, I'll explore how these diverse animation experiments eventually converged into more focused professional work, and how maintaining a playful spirit keeps animation from becoming merely technical execution. Until then, remember that anything can be animated, especially the things that seem most static.
2 -Experimental animation with Anna, Ben, Sarah and bottles of alcohol
did i forget to mention empty bottles of alcohol
Two weeks ago suddenly we were told that we had experimental animation and students from R.C.A. have come to campus to take the course. The course was pretty relaxed and different for us. Initially we had small assignments with any object of our choice. I took a bottle and a clip(to dry clothes).
As usual i was trying to build a narrative with these objects and I had the whole video figured out in my mind.
But having a few conversations with Ben and a few discussions with the three of them I decided to something abstract. Which was challenging for me. So i put up the setup in my room, borrowed Emil's collection of bottles and started the shoot.
The assignment seemed simple: create animation using objects of our choice. I selected a bottle and a clothespin—ordinary objects with just enough character to build a narrative around. True to form, my mind immediately started constructing a story, plotting out each beat of my animation.
Then came the conversations with Ben and the other RCA students that changed everything. They encouraged me to venture into abstraction—territory that felt as foreign to me as another language. Narrative had always been my safety net, my default approach to making sense of visual elements. Abandoning it felt like stepping off a cliff.
I set up an impromptu studio in my room, borrowed Emil's impressive collection of bottles (the empty alcohol variety, I should specify), and began shooting. Even then, I couldn't fully let go—a skeletal narrative framework still guided my process.
When I showed my work-in-progress to the group, they pushed me further: "Don't reveal the form of the bottles." This suggestion was both liberating and terrifying. Without form or narrative, what was left? Where would I find meaning?
The breakthrough came during editing, when I found myself increasingly distracted by the ambient sounds around me—footsteps in the corridor, pages turning, distant conversations. Instead of fighting these distractions, I embraced them. What if my animation could illustrate not a linear story but the sensory experience of my day?
This realization changed everything. My animation "yaD A" (that's "A Day" backwards) became a visual representation of my daily emotions and activities—sleeping, relaxing, watching movies—all expressed through abstract bottle imagery. No literal storytelling, just feeling and impression.
The response was positive, though Sekhar (predictably) showed little interest. Having the legendary R.L. Mistry attend our presentation added an unexpected layer of validation. Most importantly, thanks to Anna, Ben, and Sarah, I finally understood abstract films—or at least began to. This taught me another crucial lesson: Sometimes the most powerful animations don't tell you a story—they make you feel one.
Creature Comforts and Stop-Motion Experiments
Between digital models and experimental abstractions, I found time for my enduring love of stop-motion. There's something magically tangible about stop-motion that no digital technique has quite replicated for me—the tactile connection to materials, the physicality of moving objects incrementally between frames.
I created a test rig for a creature character intended for a collaborative stop-motion film. Even just testing the rig on my laptop brought that character to life in a way that feels different from digital animation. In stop-motion, you're not just creating the illusion of movement—you're documenting the actual physical journey of an object through space and time, captured one frame at a time.
This hands-on quality of stop-motion provides an important counterbalance to digital work. It reminds me that animation isn't just about technical execution but about breathing life into the inanimate. Whether that's done through sophisticated software or by physically manipulating objects doesn't matter—the magic happens in the spaces between frames.
Cassette Nostalgia: Animating Memory
Even when I'm home, supposedly relaxing, I find myself wanting to animate everything. Some objects seem to demand movement, their stillness almost an unnatural state that needs correction.
This was particularly true of my parents' old cassette tapes. Growing up, I never shared their musical taste, so these colorful plastic rectangles were more visual and tactile objects to me than vessels for sound. I played with them in unconventional ways, fascinated by the mechanical possibilities of their spools and cases.
Years later, these cassettes became animation subjects. Despite being functionally obsolete, I couldn't bear to throw them away—especially my two favorites, distinctive for their vibrant colors. There was something poignant about giving new life through animation to objects designed to store and replay sound but now rendered silent by technological progress.
The resulting animation "Cassettes" captures not just the physical movement of these artifacts but something more elusive—the animation of memory itself. Each frame contains not just the object but the ghost of my childhood curiosity, my complicated relationship with my parents' music, and the strange melancholy of obsolete technology.
I had so many additional ideas for these cassettes, plans for elaborate animations that never materialized because other projects demanded attention. This taught me yet another animation lesson: Some of the most meaningful animation ideas remain unrealized—not failures, but possibilities held in perpetual potential.
Between Frames, Between Worlds
Looking back at this phase of my animation journey—spanning digital modeling, experimental abstraction, stop-motion, and nostalgic object animation—I'm struck by how animation continues to serve as both technical practice and emotional processing.
Each project, regardless of medium or approach, became an opportunity to explore not just how things move but what that movement means. Whether rebuilding a historic aircraft in digital space, finding abstraction in bottle forms, rigging creatures for stop-motion, or breathing new life into obsolete technology, the fundamental question remained the same: how does movement create meaning?
This period taught me to embrace animation's full spectrum, from narrative to abstract, digital to physical, planned to spontaneous. The technical skills matter enormously, but they ultimately serve something more significant—the human need to see still things move, to find life in the inanimate, to create meaning through motion.
And sometimes, the most profound animations happen when we let go of our preconceptions about what animation should be—when we allow bottles to become emotions, cassettes to become memories, and technical exercises to become personal expressions.
In the next chapter, I'll explore how these diverse animation experiments eventually converged into more focused professional work, and how maintaining a playful spirit keeps animation from becoming merely technical execution. Until then, remember that anything can be animated, especially the things that seem most static.
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