From artisan to animator
If you ask Huang why she got into stop-motion, she’ll tell you it wasn’t that she dreamed of becoming an animator, but more that she wanted to promote dough-figurine crafts and realized that she could do so through stop-motion animation.
Temple sets are one of the trademarks of her work. The meticulously sculpted red-orange tiles, swallowtail roof ridges, dragon columns, lions and lanterns look just like those of a real temple, with not a detail left out. Huang’s long-term partner, cinematographer Tang Zhi-zhong, says, “Her artistry is so extravagant; there just aren’t many like her.”
Her frequent references to classic temple scenes hearken back to her memories and are healing for her. Huang’s family is from Lukang, which is an important center for both folk religion and traditional crafts. In addition, her father, Huang Xingwu, is a dough-figurine sculptor who studied under the renowned Shi Jiaoyong. Until her sophomore year at university, she used to spend her summer and winter breaks helping her father run a market stall next to temples and in night markets.
After graduating from university, Huang joined the rush into the creative–cultural field, founding a company that sold her work at fairs all over Taiwan. At one point, she even had a counter in a department store. Then the Sushi Express Group happened upon her work and approached her about using her dough figurines as mascots in an advertising campaign. It turned out that the dough-sculpting skills Huang learned as a child had equipped her to handle the most difficult aspects of stop-motion puppet making. Tang says that the ease with which Huang produces creative work is what led her into animation.
Like sugar blowing and mantou modeling, the folk art of making dough figurines was originally practiced only at particular times and places; its products were not meant to last.
Later, with the invention of epoxy modeling clays, figurine sculptors switched to this more durable material. Huang says that in those days you needed only modeling clay in the three primary colors, an understanding of color mixing, and a few task-compatible tools, “all of which you could pack into a barquillo box, and you’d be in business.”
A figurine sculptor would set up a stall onsite, customers would tell them the style they wanted, and they would make it on the spot. The craftsperson would capture the character’s appearance in just a few simple steps to ensure that they could quickly move on to the next customer, and the really good ones could produce fantastic likenesses in a flash.
“Dough-figurine makers strive for customization and personalization, not the mass-production and precision of industry,” says Huang. She says this trait works well with stop-motion animation’s characteristic highlighting of the textures of different materials. Watching Huang craft a puppet, her fingers making light impressions on its skin, her scissors creating its fingers, her sculpting tool stretching an exaggerated mouth, you can see her signature style take shape in real time.
Here, Huang Yun-sian has reimagined her childhood experiences selling dough figurines from a market stall with her father. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)
Huang Yun-sian comes from a family of dough-figurine makers, and views animation as a way forward for traditional crafts. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)
Wonderfully colorful temples and humorous images of gods are a Huang trademark. The image is from Huang’s 2018 Golden-Horse-winning short Where Am I Going?