The Sculpt Of Carl

I have finally managed to get a bit of sculpting done!
I wanted to see if the kind of characters I am designing at the moment translate to 3D so I started with a really quick 15 minute sculpt just to test the waters. This was only around 1.5" and sculpted this small to make sure I could focus on shapes rather than detail.

Then it was time to move on in a bigger scale.  I went through a few of my character designs and picked out Carl The Thug. I didn't want to necessarily sculpt the thug character but more use the design to play around with.

Then it was pretty much a 7-8 session to sculpt it. I didn't take any progress photos as I was far too sucked in to sculpting.

So here he is

I would really, really  like to turn this chap into a fully fledged puppet but I just don't have the the space to do so at the moment. Hopefully in the near future this will be possible

Edit:
A digital paint over just to see what he could look like in colour.

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.

Heads & Hands

I have been trying to decide what kind of training puppet I am going to make. So At the moment I am kind of just playing around. The first thing I did was make a solid head as I thought it would help with concentrating on body physics and not have to worry about the facial movements. So I sculpted up something that has a bit of a children's TV character look to it. Nothing moves on this apart from the blinks that I have not made yet.

He is sculpted out of Super Sculpy Firm then airbrushed and touched up with a paintbrush.

A quick concept sketch that the head sculpt is based on

The baked head

A quick digital paint over to get the right colours

Then the final head all finished

Yesterday I spent the whole day playing around with the liquid latex build up technique. I had always wanted to try this out but was swayed by the look and feel of silicone. So I thought why not have a go?
It turned out to be a lot nicer and more relaxing than I had thought it would be.

I have been studying Nick Hilligoss's Build up tutorial videos which if you haven't seen then here is the links. Very inspiring stuff ------- HEADS & BODY

I have started out with making hands as I'm going to need some for my new puppet.

I followed how Nick does armatures for hands but ended up forming my own way of doing it.
Then Got some really thin bandage foam and gave it a coat of some adhesive spray and I wrapped it around the armature. I didn't take any photos of this part of the process as its was a very sticky and messy job and didn't want to get my camera grubby.

Next came the liquid latex. I was lucky that I have flesh tinted latex but if you want to paint it or add your own tint you need to get some ammonia to stop the latex reacting with the paint and going all lumpy.
My first attempt was quite poor but at least it let me get the feel for how the technique works. Learning how fast the latex drys and if there is any really deep pools it will take a lot longer to fully cure.

My first attempt

It reminds me of an old B-movies aliens hand :D But it did pave the way for my last attempt.
I am actually really pleased with how this turned out and actually prefer them to any of the silicone hands I have made. A couple of things I'm not happy about is the thickness and length of the fingers and I also went a bit overboard with trying to put detail on the back of the hand. No matter though as its just a test.

Busy times

Well things have gotten really busy round here at the moment so I thought I would post up the head sculpt I was last working on.

Click to view large

There is still a little bit of work to do on him. I need to trim the back of his head and his jawline so I can give him a neck. Then there is just general clean up before making the mold but I have not got a clue when I will get to finish him due to currents projects and work going on.

I always find it funny that I'm really happy with a sculpt until I take a photo of it and put it on here!

The next blog post will probably about the camera dolly my Dad is helping me build at the moment.
 I found some designs and threads about camera rigs on stopmotionanimation.com and just passed the research to my dad any he's planned it all up. One requirement I have is that it needs to be for stop motion and for live action so we are trying to figure a way that i can detach the thread from the main truck part of the dolly when its needed for live shoots.
Anyway here is a few photos of all the basic parts minus the threaded rod.

 

 

I will do a more detailed post when it's all finished.
Well back to working on this animation about planets ;)

I hope everyone is doing well!!!

2011

Well there goes another year. It had some very bad lows but also some very good highs. I wish you all the best for 2011 and hope you had a great Christmas and new year!

I haven't blogged in a while about my own work due to not really having much to talk about. First off is that me and my chum are trying to start a small animation/film studio. We are currently negotiating our first job which will be a stop motion music video for a band. If all goes well It will be a really great job but I'm not going to get my hopes up as over the past few months things haven't gone to plan.
With that in mind I am going to continue with a few personnel projects. One is a short film that I will talk about at a later date. The next is to explore and expand my skills in puppet making. I am going to work on head armatures and replacement facial features.

I also need to make a practice puppet so I can animate a few basic principles for a new showreel.
For this I have sculpted a head which is pretty much finished apart from needing surgery due to knocking it over resulting in a bludgeoned eyebrow and chunks of hair missing.

Luckily I took some photos of it before the accident.











I have gone for quite a stylized look for this chap and am quite happy with how he has turned out. I'm looking at doing replacement beards for lip sync and cast the rest of the head out of silicone to get nice subtle translucent skin with movable eyebrows.

The rest of the body will also be quite stylized. I still need to do some concept work for that as with the head I started out with the shape of the head in clay then did a super quick drawing of what was in my mind



So hopefully by the end of the week I will have the rest of the concept work done and perform surgery on the head. I will try and keep everyone up to date with the process.