Bringing back an old friend

While I have been researching new mould materials I have also been playing with a new way to make puppet heads.

After previous puppet head fails I have been looking at ways to make a light weight head. I have developed a simple technique. It has probably been done before but I've  never heard of anyone doing it or documenting. I'm quite happy with it.

The core of the head is made out of Styrofoam with a piece of K&S secured in to the bottom for neck wire or a smaller bit of tube to slot int. Then Its just a case of skinning the core with a thin layer of plasticine.

I was fairly happy with this but I fixed the K&S far too close to the chin leaving him pretty much unusable. Still it was a good first try.

For the next head I did exactly the same thing and made sure the K&S was fixed further back leaving enough room for it to have a fair sized chin.

The next step was to cut out a space for easy keying replacement mouths and covering the whole head in a surgical cloth tape to give the plasticine some extra grip.

Now for the fun part, Sculpting!!!

One problem I did come across was how too keep the eyes in place firmly as when I tried to manipulate the they would end up completely moving or popping out. This was solved by sculpting the eyelids around the eye to keep them secure. I will still need to look into to this for future heads as it may not be desirable with certain character designs. But it will do for the moment.

Then after a bit of smoothing and adding a mouth

As I'm not working from any particular design I couldn't decide whether he looked like he could be a small chubby kid or as an old chap. I asked peoples opinions over on TWITTER and most suggested an old chap. I did a quick bit of a draw over to see how he could look and was quite happy with how he would look as long as I could get it very similar to the photoshop make over.

I was also quite surprised that he looked like a better and updated version of my old friend from my first student film 'In with the old out with the new' 

I am really quite proud of the old chap and is definitely some of my best work so far.  

I have also mixed the plasticine for the eyesbrows with bee's wax as this makes it a lot harder and holds its shape for much longer. I am thinking that I will also do this with his mustache.

Here is the final head. (Click for a bigger view)

I just need to make a few replacement mouths and also a few replacement mustaches. All in all I'm really happy with this test.
I'm wondering if I should bring back the old mender and give him a new story or just to create a new character for him. Hmmmm so much to do and so little time.

To mould or not to mould

An update on the creepy chap is in order.

I finished off the sculpting. He just needed a neck and a bit of cleaning up.

Now it was time to make the mould. I made the base using Klean Klay as usual then hot glued the acrylic walls together making sure there was not gaps for leaks. I also wanted to try out a technique I had seen in Nick Hilligos's videos where he puts some wire in the eyes so that when you come to cast in silicone you have great registration spots and don't have mess about trying to line them up in the mold or attaching them to your head armature.

One thing I did notice whilst investigating the sculpture was that there is a few spots on it that are going inwards quite deeply such as the holes in the nostrils and a few spots around the eyes and inside the mouth. This has made me a bit cautious that when making the mould out of plaster that it would leave these parts very weak and will most likely break when pulling out the sculpture and even when pulling the cast out.
This has led me to investigate some harder and more durable mould materials and started a quest for finding out what the professional studios use.  this has proven quite a difficult task. Mackinnon and Saunders have told me that they use something called 'Formite' which is a mix of aluminium powder and epoxy resin and can be baked even for casting foam latex. I need to contact them again as I'm having a bit of a hard time sourcing on the internet. I also have been in contact with on e of the head model makers at Aardman to find out what they use. I'm still waiting on this info but hopefully it will be easier to find an online seller for it.

So this creepy chap will have to wait until my quest of the mould is complete!

Creepy

This week has been quite good! I went down to Bristol for a talk on the puppet fabrication on Aardman's "Pirates' it was mostly centered on rapid prototyping and was absolutely amazing!

It was so great to hear, in depth, the process and research that went into making these puppets. Being able to inspect and study the pieces was incredible. Although it did make me feel like throwing all of my work in the bin it also has given me inspiration and drive to get better.

Here is the brilliant Amanda Darby and one of the puppets from 'Pirates' and me with the strangest expression I have ever seen. Only a face a mother could love, ey?

 So I have been working on a new head sculpt as I remembered I still have some silicone that needs to be used up pretty soon as I've had it since May or June last year and I think it wont last much longer.

It is quite nice going back to using Chavant clay after using plasticine for a bit as I find its easier to get some of the angles and shapes that I like. I think this has turned out to be my best sculpt so far. I'm still trying to decide whether to sculpt the hair on of give him a synthetic make over after I cast in silicone.
He still needs a bit of cleaning up and a neck but nothing that will take too long

Then the final head

I think he looks incredibly creepy

With Christmas coming up I need to get a few things done before my work space becomes out of bounds. I am going to make another armature just so I can carry on with a couple of characters. One semi realistic with silicone head and hands and one more cartoony with plasticine head and hands.

Time Flys

I really cant believe it has been over a month since my last post! Time really does fly way too quick.

So in my last post I mentioned that I would be starting a new armature and also playing with plasticine. On with the show!

Now Plasticine is lovely stuff! I'm still getting used to it as I normally sculpt with harder materials so having something that squishes easily can be a bit frustrating at first but when you get used to how much pressure you need to apply it  soon becomes a nice and quick way of doing sculptures/ puppet heads.

I had seen that Aardman use an under skull to bulk out the plasticine and too also make it easier when digging the current mouth out to add a new one. I made a few out of some K&S and polymorph. One thing I did find it that you must have some room for the eyes so when the plasticine is layer on the skull you can make large enough holes for the eyes to sit firmly and not be sticking out the head too much.
I had to go through a few to find this out

And here is my first quick sculpt with plasticine 

Then my second with a version on the end of how I would like it to finally look 

I did do a quick sculpt that I could try out some replacement mouths with. He ended up looking a bit too much like Wallace and i probably wont use him for anything . I have still yet to find the time to test it out but hopefully will be able to by the end of next week.

Then this is pretty much the last sculpt I did. I'm finding it quite hard to smooth the plasticine out in small corners e.g the corners of the nose and under the eyebrows. I still need to play with a bit more to figure that one out.

I have also finished building a new armature. After my last big bugger of a puppet I decided to keep the size of it to about 8-9" and it really is considerably smaller then the last puppet. I have gone to great lengths to make sure it is sturdy as I can get it. I think I am going to do some animation tests before I pad it out and finish it off. Just to make sure everything is fine. One big mistake I did make was completely forgetting about a rig point. I'm not too worried about that at the moment but if i do need to rig it I will just have to do the old wrap wire around the puppet and hope for the best!. Also this time I have tapped some threaded holes in to the feet for tie downs and also used the same steel as before so that if I want to try out magnets again I can. The only thing I need to do is add some K & S to the neck so I can slot in a head

As this puppet is going to have plasticine hands I don't need to have wire fingers as I have heard it is easier to re sculpt the hands then have wire popping though all the time. A washer is used as the base for the hand. I still need to wrap it up in some cloth tape so the plasticine wont come of the armature.

And here is the finished armature!

The next step is to do some quick tests with it before I move on. I should hopefully do this over the next few days.