Hey Cosclayers!
This month we're kicking off our Cosclayer Spotlight. We'll be showcasing artists who use Cosclay in their creative process and talking to them about their inspirations and projects they're currently working on.

Meirav Haber is an Israeli-born award-winning independent filmmaker and Los-Angeles based artist specializing in sculpture, painting, and puppet-making. Meirav regularly works for Stoopid Buddy Stoodios on Robot Chicken and content for Disney, Hasbro and Marvel. Meirav earned a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from UCLA and a Master’s in Art Therapy from Loyola Marymount University.

Meirav is known for her meticulous attention to detail and heart-felt storytelling style, captured in her stop-motion films "STAN” (2014) and "Sylvia" (2019) which showcase old-school practical effects and delicately hand-crafted sets and characters.

What got you interested in stop-motion?

I grew up watching films like Wallace and Gromit and Nightmare before Christmas, and really fell in love with stop-motion as a medium early on but I never imagined I would find my way into the film industry.

Most of my life I wanted to be an artist. I sculpted and painted any chance I got. I loved the physicality of creating things with my hands, and I was good at it. So when I was old enough I pursued an art education even though the prospects of a career in art felt grim. In 2010, I got out of school with a fine arts degree from UCLA and started to show my art in galleries while pursuing a master’s in art therapy. I quickly figured out that the gallery lifestyle was not really for me. But while I was showing in a gallery in downtown LA called the “Hive”, I met someone who had actually been an animator on Nightmare Before Christmas. He looked at my sculptures and said I had an eye for detail, the kind that it takes to make miniatures and puppets for stop-motion. My eyes lit up and I insisted on finding a way into the world he spoke of. Turned out the studio he worked for was just down the street from where I lived at the time in Burbank and I thought it was kismet!

I literally went out and bought a book on stop-motion, started building a portfolio of props and puppets, cold emailed the studio for an internship, called up my former roommate who had studied film and lightheartedly said she would one day make a stop-motion film with me, and started to make a film in our small apartment. It later became my first stop-motion film STAN. And all this was happening when I had just finished up a master’s degree in Art Therapy and was working as an art therapist. I loved art therapy because it taught me how to use art as an emotional outlet and I really believe that it shaped me into the filmmaker that I am today, but I didn’t see myself as a therapist and felt my soul calling me back to art. I switched gears and really hustled to get odd jobs as a prop, puppet, and toy painter, and eventually got my dream job as a puppet maker at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios- the studio I mentioned above- and I’m continuing to make stop-motion films independently today.

How long have you been sculpting and creating puppets for?

I’ve been sculpting and making puppets for stop-motion and independently making stop-motion films since 2012. :)

What role did Cosclay play in the creation of the puppets for your latest stop-motion project, “Soulstice?”

I used Cosclay to build the head of the tree character we call “Lone Birch” in our upcoming film “Soulstice”.

How has the inclusion of Cosclay into your artistic tool belt aided your creative process?

On my first two films, I chose to use mainly sculpey, or polymer clay, because I liked the look and feel of it, but it was undeniably fragile and not really suitable for animating. When I started building the puppet for our latest film “Soulstice”, the challenge was finding a material that could lend itself well to the intricate tree design of Lone Birch. I needed to build a head with some very specific shapes and forms, and didn’t want to go through the costly and time consuming process of sculpting, molding and casting the head in a flexible rubber or foam for one single puppet head. I also didn’t want to build up the head with sports tape or latex, or carve it out of soft foam because it would be so hard to accurately achieve the kind of shapes that I was going for with these materials on top of the wire.

I found Cosclay to be the perfect choice for a one-off puppet that needs some light flexibility so it doesn’t break when it gets bumped and can handle subtle bending- like animating the branches moving in the wind or bending under the weight of a bird. I was able to sculpt thin and it only seemed to gain in flexibility.

And the sculpted tree branches are thin enough that the birds (with the magic of magnets) can sit on the branches and attach to the steel wire underneath the clay without falling.

The Verdict: Cosclay is a game changer for me!

*(J.R.Slattum's original painting and the inspiration for the short film "Soulstice")*

Where can I see more of your work?

If you’d like to know more or help support our stop-motion film “Soulstice”, you can check it out here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soulstice/soulstice

You can also find my first two stop-motion films and art on my website at:

www.meiravhaber.com

And feel free to connect with me on social media here:

https://www.facebook.com/meiralaland

Do you have a project you're working on using Cosclay that everybody needs know about?
Send an email to media@cosclay.com and you can be featured!

⭐Cosclayer Spotlight: Meirav Haber⭐