Troublesome chap!

Well this puppet just does not want to behave! I tried doing another walk cycle and its just way to much trouble to be animating with. All I want to be doing is concentrating on my movements and getting everything how I want it but when using this fella and the rig I just seem to be battling my way through it and having to start over which is just not on. I am going to begin making a new puppet and its going to have tie downs and it is going to be a lot smaller. I measured this current puppet and it is a whopping 13"!! My next one is going to be around 8-9".

I have also gotten myself some of this lovely stuff to play with.

I have been wanting to have a proper play with plasticine for a while now but never had the chance. Its also the ideal time as I need to use what my little funds can afford me and I cant afford to be buying silicone all the time. I'm going to make a few heads and try some replacement mouths out which I am really looking forward too. I have always been a bit scared of using plasticine as I was never too confident in my sculpting. It should be a lot of fun! I am also looking forward to making a new puppet as this last one was the first since my uni project a year ago so I kind of had to expect some faults here and there.

Here is the last walk cycle I did. I'm not happy with it but I'm also not going to beat myself up about it. I cant get him up and down enough to give a believable weight. I couldnt get him back in the same starting pose to make the cycle smooth when looping but that was no ones fault but my own. I also cant really get in to animate it that well as my current set up it just an old set clamped to some chairs and because the chap is damn big I have to use a wider angle lens close in which doesn't leave me much room to animate.

I know the picture looks like I have loads of room but believe me there isn't!

Excuses excuses ey!

Lessons Learned

Over the weekend I finally got to do some animation!!! I first tried on Saturday but had so much trouble with my rig I couldn't carry on and had to wait till Sunday to fix it and try again. The rig is, in true stop motion fashion, just a knocked up mish mash of bits and bobs I have lying around.
It consists of a really heavy anglepoise lamp base with threaded rod glued in and two old umbrella swivels from some of my old photography equipment that I don't need anymore.

With these all bashed together I finally had something to work with and got some tests done



The rig is still proving to be a big problem and really effecting the animation. It keeps slipping and tilting the puppet and also the arm is swiveling very slightly making the puppet lean to one side. I thought this would be an easy thing to fix whilst animating but found that it wasn't at all. So many little problems end up being one big problem and made it a very disheartening and stressful time on something that I have been so excited about for so long. So the conclusion here is make sure your rig behaves!

One HUGE problem has come to light while doing these tests, I cant secure my puppet down with magnets. The magnets are far to week even with the thinnest board between them and the feet. This means he has to be rigged at all times which is pretty much useless as I am limited in how I can move him with the rig attached.
I have made changes to the rig and will be doing some more tests today but this has confirmed my earlier thoughts that I am going to have to make a new puppet.

I will post more about the new puppet after I have done some more tests with the current puppet. I will probably post the results later this evening or tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed!

Also over the weekend I have decided to set up a new blog that is dedicated to real stop motion animation. I'm talking strictly puppets!
At the moment i have just posted a load of short films and 'making of' videos. I'm starting t think whether this was a bad idea as things are quite easy to find and people wouldnt have much use for it but then again it's always nice to have a place where it is all bookmarked for you.
I think it would be better as a sort of database site rather then a blog. I'm just a bit unsure. Have a look and let me know what you think as I would really appreciate your feedback on this
http://realstopmotion.blogspot.com

Also if you have twitter you can follow @realstopmotion for updates.
And you can also follow my personnel twitter HERE

He's done!

After lots of trouble the chap is now finally finished!
 The clothes caused a bit of an unwanted delay but my lovely mum took over and got them done and I just finished of with a bit of sewing, which is why his back wont be making to much of an appearance in any of the animation ;)

The next thing I need to do is knock together a rig as I have made a few BIG mistakes with the construction of this puppet.
The first is that he is really top heavy as his head is made from solid baked Super Sculpy firm also he is around 12" tall so this does not help with my problems. And finally as he has steel feet for magnets I couldn't fit in some holes for tie downs as well and the magnets I do have arent going to be strong enough to support him when he's standing on one leg etc so he is going to have to be attached to a rig quite a lot of the time.

Either way he should be heading in to bootcamp by the weekend and I am very excited to be animating with a puppet again!! Bring it on

Puppet Progress

I cant believe it has been just over 2 weeks since my last post. Doesn't time bloomin fly ey!

My training puppet is coming along very nicely.  After doing the hand test with the liquid latex I decided I would do both hands at the same time while the technique is still fresh in my head.

I took a few step by step pictures of how I do my hand armatures as I think they are very simple to do but but very strong.

With one strand of 1mm aluminium wire I make the basic shape of a hand

Then I hold the bottom of each finger and twist the wire leaving a loop at the top to form the base of the fingertip. I also twist the wire to form the wrist and forearm

Then with what ever wire that is left from the forearm I double back up to the wrist and wrap it around to form the base of the palm of the hand. Thats it, you now have a quick and easy hand armature!

Also here is a couple of photos of adding the thin foam to the hands and then cut into shape ready for the latex build up

The hands did not come out as good as my last try but they will do as I'm not going for perfection with this puppet. You will see them in a few photos a bit further down.


The next step was to make the main body armature. I had already roughed up the proportions and armature design but left them very sketchy as I knew I wanted to make adjustments as I went along.

I started out with two blocks of wood for the hips and chest. I sawed these down to the right sizes and then rounded off the edges.
I drilled holes in the top of the chest block so I could slot the wire into to it for the arms and neck and did the same for the hip block. For the arms and spine/neck wire glued some aluminium tubing to harden up the areas that dont need to be manipulated. I attached the hands and also made a neck by using the same build up technique that I used to make the hands. I have also drilled a hole in the hip block to attach a rig when needed.

The next step was to sort him some feet out. This took a few days of trial and error as I want the puppet to have toe joints. The feet are made from steel strips as I am going to try out magnets instead of tie downs. At first I tried to make aluminium braces to clamp the wire down to the steel. The only way to do this was using 5minute epoxy. I glued them together then clamped them with spring clips to keep them secure.

Unfortunately this didn't work as the epoxy does not seem to bond steel and aluminium very well. The next step was to try soldering them but I had to wait a few days for that as I was waiting on an order of silver solder, flux and some square K&S tubing.
When they finally arrived I decided to ditch the brace idea and use K&S tube to fix the wire to the steel feet plates. The first test I did was with one piece of tubing but when it was done I attached it to the puppet and I found the ankles were not strong at all and would just bend too easily. So I doubled up the K&S tubing and wire that went into to them create a stronger joint. this worked great and was very happy with the results.

The finished feet armatures

While I was waiting for the materials to arrive I started to pad the top half of him out.

The next thing I did was to make shoes for him. I made them using the liquid latex build up as I need the toes to bend. Using some cushion foam I made the base of the shoes which I think look like slippers!  After the glue had dried I chopped them down to right shape.

I then added in some very basic details like the back of the shoe, tongues and a rim around the outside.

Then it was time to add the latex. I didn't smooth the whole shoe as I was liking the texture it was producing when drying.
One tip I can offer is if your doing latex build up work and adding it on to foam it takes a while to dry so I found out using a hairdryer to heat it speeds the curing process up quite a lot. Remember though if you have a very thick bits/pools of latex it will just dry the top layer and underneath will not be 100% cured.

The finished feet

After the feet were complete I could pad the rest of the puppet. I only took one photo of that step as I worked pretty fast and didn't really stop while doing it.

I wanted to leave the puppet like this!!

So that's pretty much where I have gotten to with this chappy. He is at this moment in time lying on the table ready to be clothed. I have all the patterns done and some material cut ready to be sewn. I also need to paint up some wood for an animation table and also make the rig to support him when running/jumping but I have to get some photography work out of the way first before I can do those jobs. Hopefully this time next week I will have some animation tests done to show you.

So I will leave you with a sneaky look at how he is looking at the moment even though he is pretty much naked! Hope you are all doing well