Corpser's neck mechanism

I managed to build the neck mechanism of my puppet this week.  I wasn't sure about the best way to do it.  One thing i was sure of, the weight of the head was a problem.

My first idea was to use a desk lamp's flexible support as a neck to link the head to the body.  I didn't try that, because i was afraid to have a jerky animation result (my character's animation experience is very little).  

So i choose to work with a hinge that would move the head, only up and down, but with a good control on it.

After this mechanism was done, i looked at the original movie in loops and i quickly find out that i didn't want my puppet's head to only move in one axis.  So i build a 3 axis mechanism, which i'm pretty happy working with.
 

Here's the part for moving the head clockwise and counter-clockwise.

Here's the part for moving the head left and right.

Finally, the part to move it up and down.  There's a wire that maintain the head in the desired position.  It's attached on a thread rod and stays in place with a nut.

Here's a quick animation test i have done to get the feel of it and to see if any more adjustments were required.

Some pictures i made for fun.

I'll work on padding up the body this week.

Uh oh !!  I almost forgot.  Brett McCoy sent me a rough mix this week of the soundtrack he's preparing for my movie (Yeah yeah... Brett McCoy !!).  I don't want to tease you, but this sounds awesome !!  He is very well known in the stopmotion community as a brilliant composer.  He kindly do music for stopmotion artists while working on his personal projects.  If you haven't did it already, visit his website -> www.electricminstrel.com