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.

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