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.