Recently people have been asking about how I made the Solar Eclipse animation for TED-Ed.  I thought i’d upload some images I took along the way as a bit of a “making of” for anyone who’s interested.

First, I produced several styleframes of possible looks for the production.

The practical look seemed to get people making happy noises, and I really liked the kitch, 50’s B sci fi feel of it, so I went with that. Unfortunately, Earth 1.0 blew over in the wind immediately after I took the photo used in the style frame and smashed all over the ground.

I set about making a new earth, a better earth.  An earth sculpted in plastercine, molded in silicone and cast in ultracal. And I had the mold, so if I dropped this one, I could easily make another!

This is the final model of earth 2.0 and the moon…