Clothes and Coverings!

In my last post I talked about my fisherman's head, and in this one I'm going to talk through his clothing and also the seagulls final look. I would have got around to posting sooner but I wanted to add some final touches to both puppets before posting any pictures - I still have the odd things to do on them but they're essentially done now and ready for viewing! I won't drone on too much with how I made everything, I'll just let the pictures do the talking!

For my fisherman's jumper and hat I wanted them knitted so that they'd look a bit more realistic (ish) and also absolutely adorable!! My only drawback here was that I'd actually never knitted anything in my life, but what better time to learn than with a major deadline approaching aye?! It's safe to say I wasn't the quickest at knitting, though I sort of got the hang of it quite quickly, it took me way too long to even produce this - which for my first ever attempt I'm pretty pleased with to be honest!

Luckily for me, my lovely mum (and knitting master), stepped in and offered to knit my character's jumper and hat for me (I say offered, I practically begged her!). And doesn't he look adorable?! minus the creepy white face of course.

Next it was time to make his overalls. I managed to find the perfect yellow, PVC material after hours of searching and purchasing the wrong type of fabric to start off with. Though the look of it was great it was really hard to get into the right shapes, as it only really stretched one way. After a little mental breakdown and copious amounts of hot chocolate I managed to get it how I wanted it! Huzzah!

When the overalls were all sewn up and on the body I started adding some details. I was so fortunate to find the perfect material for his braces/ straps. They came off an old necklace (the same one I got his bead eyes off in fact - it always helps to hoard things!) which had the perfect metal parts at the ends that I could then use for the buckles on the straps. I then added a pocket using the same PVC material, and a little later on I added turn-ups to the bottom of his trousers (they're not in this picture though).

To finish off his head I added this fur material I brought from Cardiff Market, it wasn't really the colour I wanted but I think it works nether the less. I cut it into all the shapes I needed and then sprayed them with Starch so that the fur would stay in place a little better. I'm pretty pleased with how he looks!

And before I reveal the final image of him I'll quickly tell you about the seagull - For the seagull I just sewed bits of fabric together to create his feathers. Before doing so though, I made an eye socket using Air Dry Fimo which I just placed where I wanted the eyes to go then pushed the bead eyes into it to make the shape. 

Finally, here we have the final images of the two characters! I haven't posed them yet as I don't really want to move them too much before animating in case the wire gets too worn out. I hope you like them!

Thanks for taking a look! I'll be posting the props and set as soon as I can!

Building the Head

I've currently got the whole head finished, and the entire puppet to be honest, but I'm only just getting around to posting about it - naughty!

Okay, so I started off by making eye sockets - I just pushed the beads I was going to use as eyes into a slab of Fimo, that I cut to shape and then baked it. For this head I'm making it in a very different way to how I've previously made heads so there has been a lot of trial and error on the way. I ended up making 2 eye sockets as I had put the eyes too far apart. To check how the face would look I made quick sculpts of the face onto the sockets using Plasticine. I then made some paper moustache/ eyebrows/ sideburns and stuck them on because the face looked creepy without them!

I then glued my chosen eye socket onto a piece of polystyrene that I'd carved to roughly the shape of the character's skull. Shoving a long piece of K&S in it so it would fix to the neck joint and it was ready to go. I then went about sculpting the face directly onto the skull, using Fimo, which by all accounts was a completely stupid thing to do and I'll tell you for why - 1. you can't easily peel the face off, even with lots of Vaseline underneath, without it loosing its shape and 2. the Fimo I used needs to be baked, this means putting the whole thing in the oven! Looking back, I can see how silly it was to think putting polystyrene in the oven and having it come out unscathed was (then again it was the middle of the night when I did this so no judgments here please?!)

And here is the result: a shrunken, mess of a skull and a cracked face, that only just came off! You'll be pleased to know I did a better job on the actual thing though.

I then went about the build a little differently, especially after researching into better techniques and things. Luckily, I was able to salvage the eye sockets, so that was then glued onto a new skull shaped piece of polystyrene (don't worry, I knew what I was doing this time!). I then added Ultra Light Sculpy to the head to give a better shape and hold the eye socket on place more firmly. This Sculpy (green was the only colour I had in case you're wondering) is air drying so I didn't need to risk another oven fiasco! 

When the whole head was dry I then made a "mask" on top of the front of the face - with the eyes in place - using Miliput (also air drying!!). I put a load of Vaseline on the head before I sculpted though, which is a very handy thing to do if you want the face to come off. The mask didn't need to be neat but I had to make it the right size and shape that I wanted the removable face to be. When it was dry I could then sculpt onto it quite easily and pop it in the oven no problem!

I sculpted the back of the head straight onto the skull, as it didn't need to be replaceable. To do this I used air drying Fimo clay then shoved the ears from my previous sculpt on top. I then added magnets to both the skull and "face mask" so that they would fix together more securely.

 Here is the head looking rather eerie without any eyes! 

I then went about painting all the parts of the head, trying to match the colour of the hands as best I could. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out and as I'm not doing any replaceable mouths for this character - he doesn't talk and all his expression comes from his eyes/ eyebrows/ 'tache anyway - I tried to make it as simple yet striking as I could.

And here he is! Well, minus his hair/ brows/ sideburns/ real 'tache and other key parts, but who cares aye?! 

I'll be posting images of how the final head looks when I get round to doing one on his clothes, so don't you worry your cotton socks about it.

Thanks for taking a gander anyway, and hopefully soon I'll get around to posting his final look, along with the seagull!

Padding out and Latexing up!

Right, prepare yourself for what will most certainly turn out to be a pretty long - possibly tedious - post. I want to get through both the padding out of my fisherman character and my seagull, and then also the Latex work that went into them. 

So a couple of weeks ago I got the padding out stage of my puppets done but I wanted to wait until the Latex parts were done before posting (I'm not entirely sure why but lets just roll with it shall we?!). To pad out firstly I had to pad the "hard" parts of the body using hard foam, these include areas such as the chest and hips, as you don't want those parts getting all squished when you're animating as it just looks weird. How I like to think about it is adding a solid pair of pants and solid sort of cropped vest to my character. I glued these parts on using two part epoxy glue - making sure I left holes for the rigging points to poke on through.

Once the solid parts were glued on I then had to glue on the soft foam onto the areas where the joints or parts need to flex. I find cutting chunks to roughly the right shape then gluing them on before trimming to the required shape is the best way of going about padding the soft areas. For this I used a different glue, one that dries strong but still allows movement.

When the mid section was covered I then went about covering it in a sort of foam jumper. First, I made a kind of vest and then added some sleeves, but this is all meant to be the fisherman's *ahem* slightly plumper frame shall we say. It may need to get trimmed down though towards the end, depending on how thick the jumper comes out.

I then went and padded out half the legs - the wellies will add to the bottom section when made. The seagull was then padded out in the same sort of way, though the whole of his body is soft foam and his head is hard foam.

Okay, sorry to drag the post on but I'll just quickly run through the Latex areas of the characters - I've already told you how I made the hands here, and the rest is all a similar sort of process except for that they were made using just a one part mould (that may not be the technical term but ahh well) rather than a two part mould.

First things first I got the parts for Latexing sculpted out using Plasticine. By the by, this is my second attempt at the seagulls legs as I sculpted them before and then made the wrong type of mould, wasting like a week of work in the process - woe is me!!

When the sculpts were done and smoothed down with talcum powder it was then time to make the moulds. I made a box around the the sculpts using some plastic sheets and held them in place with copious amounts of tape and clay to stop any leaks when the plaster was poured on.

It was then time to pour the plaster on, making sure everything was smothered in Vaseline first of course. When everything was dry it was then time to take out the Plasticine sculpts.

When all the Plasticine was out it was time to clean the moulds before adding layer after tedious layer of precoloured Latex. It was then time to put the armatures in the mould before chucking a load more Latex in afterwards. The feet needed padding out a little first but after that they were good to go.

After a day of drying and then another day of drying after I had to redo the legs, my Latex parts were done! Huzzahh!!

This is the legs when they first came out the mould before I redid them!

And here - you lovely patient person, you! - are my puppets as they are now, with all the Latex parts and padding all on. 

Thanks for taking a look, more to come soon!

Empty Corridors

Just a quick post today as I realise I'm not posting as often as I'd like to. So lets just hope you enjoy it!

As well as my own project I have to do some collaboration work and as part of mine I was asked to build a little set for another person on my course to maybe use in their animation. It had to be a quite bleak looking place, so I designed and built a deserted, sort of creepy looking, corridor. I took inspiration from that all time classic film, The Shining, based on the book by one of my all time favourite writers, Stephen king - but this is besides the point! I wanted floral, out of date designed wallpaper; deep mahogany coloured wood; and just a general 70's inspired decor all round.

I started off by assembling the walls and thought it looked a little straight and plain, so I shaped some card and made some pillars for either side of the corridor. I then went about making the little doors (the door in the picture I made first though so that I would get the sizing right!)

After a long while browsing online for the right wallpaper I chose one I thought looked good, and then applied it to the walls using spray mount. Once I was done I looked and it and thought it just didn't look right so pulled it all off and then went about scouring the web once again! I eventually found this one which I really liked and it already looked a bit grimy too which was ace for the brief. I then added a lovely brown carpet to the mix, which I got off a dolls house website.

When I was happy with the layout I got the walls down and started to "dirty" them up using teabags and black/ grey chalks. After all that was done I fixed the whole thing together before adding extra details. 

And here is the final thing! I've added a skirting board, which I find makes all indoor sets look that much more realistic. I've also added some lights and a painting in frame (a John Constable if any of you art savvy guys were wondering) which all came from the same previously mentioned dolls house furniture store. I've got to say, dolls house furniture is the dogs when it comes to detailing stop motion sets!

Thanks for taking a look! More on my project to come soon.

Fisherman's hands

My initial plan for my characters hands was to make them out of Silicone, but after opening the container and finding the product to be a deep ox blood type red, plans changed. I decided to use Latex instead, I'd used it before on my old lady character so I knew what to expect and what needed to be done.

To start, I had to sculpt a set of hands over my armature hands, and to do this I used Plasticine - possibly my favourite thing ever! - as it's really easy to use and shape, and will come off easily later on. Once my hands were sculpted I needed to make a two part mould using plaster and clay.

Once I was happy with my sculpts I smoothed them down with talcum powder to give a better texture. I then embedded them about halfway into a slab of clay which I then covered all over the top with Vaseline (this is so the mould comes apart when dry). I added chunks of clay in two corners so that the mould fits together much cleaner when finished. 

I then made a little container for the slab to fit all snug in and glued it up nice and tight using a glue gun.

Plaster was then mixed up good and proper and gently poured over the mould. Banging the table gets rid of any unwanted air bubbles and chunks of clay stop any leakage.

When the top half of the mould was dry it was time to make the second half - hence two part mould! The box is taken off and the clay section removed, the mould is then flipped and the box put back in place. Another layer of plaster is then poured on top, and once dry there you have your two part mould all ready to use!

To make the actual hands acrylic paint is mixed with the Latex and painted on in layers before the armature is put in place and the mould smooshed back together. Then once everything is dry (I usually give it a day to dry completely) I was left with a pair of hands ready to use, once the Latex is trimmed of course.

Unfortunately, my mould broke after being used but I still needed it to make another set of spare  hands so a quick repair job using superglue was in order before I could make the second set. Luckily, everything turned out pretty well - the only problem being that the k&s discoloured the Latex in some areas - I'm very pleased with how it all came out though.

Thanks for taking a look! I'll be using Latex and moulds for other parts of my build so will update with pictures and what-not when they're done, I hope you enjoyed my little post! 

Fisherman and Seagull Armatures

I've started building now and though I'm further behind then I would have liked I'm still trying to find the motivation to kick start my creativity - it's hiding very well! I keep getting set backs due to having the wrong materials or size materials and I really would like to be on track with my schedule.

I'll try not to be too down in the dumps about everything and give you a quick glimpse into the work I'm doing at the moment.

So, I've finally got my armatures built for both the fisherman and the seagull and a the moment I'm working on the hands and bird's legs - which will hopefully be made from Silicone when finished - but I'll be posting about that a little later once they're done and out of the way.

Both my armatures are made using k&s tubing (in various sizes, depending on where they're being stuck) and twisted wire. On the fisherman I used double twisted wire for the arms and triple twisted for the spine and legs/ feet. All exposed wire is covered in heat shrink wrap to help it last longer. For his neck I used a ball and socket joint to give it better movement and also because I'd never used one before and thought it'd be interesting to use.

When it came to the hands I used a thinner wire for the fingers - but the same double twisted wire as the arms for the wrists. Most parts of the armature are removable, as this makes fixing it much easier if it gets broken, and they all slot together via the k&s tubes. 

Each hand is glued together on top of a small, ring shaped piece of metal and the tips of the fingers are dipped in the glue to stop them being sharp and breaking through their covering. Once everything was glued and assembled together, major joints and parts (that I really don't want coming apart and also to add some weight) were covered using chunks of Milliput.

The seagull does have wings if you're wondering, they're just not in the picture! 

I hope this was useful and I'll be posting the steps I've been taking to make the hands all fleshed out as soon as possible. Thanks for taking a look!