First steps into puppet construction

Last week, i've done my shopping and this week, many experiments.  I've played with silicone, liquid latex, epoxy putty, clay, Super sculpey and with foam padding.  Even if i wasn't progressing on my project while doing these experiments, i've gain more confidence and experience with these products which will help me later. 

I've start with the legs.  First, i've put epoxy putty on a twisted wire. 

I've cutted some cushioning soft foam and glued it with contact cement.  This material allows to add volume on the body part without adding much weight to it. 

I've then applied some thin layers (4) of this very cool product.  I don't think it's the same as "real" liquid latex because it looks thicker.  But the results are almost the same.  The latex is very flexible and can endure a good level of stress before tearing apart.

 

 

I wasn't very satisfied with the results, so i made another test with it.  I took a broom stick.  Put some petroleum jelly on it and applied some layers (5) on it.  The last two layers were very thick.  I am really happy with the results.  It looks more like monster skin.

However, it isn't very easy to fit it on a padded leg.  I should make the legs with the first method, but i'll do thicker layers at the end like in the second one.

Richard Svensson posted really good tutorials about building puppets and you should definitely see them if you build one.

I also played a bit with Super sculpey and i really enjoyed working with it.  I did what i will do for the head with a smaller styrofoam ball.  I just covered it with Super sculpey and putted it in a small oven.   I read that it isn't good to cook food in an oven after you baked Super scultpey, so i found an old one just for that.  I've baked it at 225 F for 3 hours.

The eyes of the puppet are yellow lights.  A LED lights test was required.  I found some yellowish plastic that i've use for my test.   I putted it in the oven with some Super sculpey to see if it will resist to the heat.

After fitting the LED light in the ball, i noticed that the Super sculpey is translucent.

I applied some black tape in a straw shape to resolve the problem.

That doesn't really worked like that, because the eyes of the puppet are almost sideways ,so we won't see them properly if i do them like that.

I'll try to find some LITE-BRITE yellow pins this week and that should be just perfect when i'll put them a little outside of the head.

While my experiments were drying, i've worked on the body's armature of the puppet.  I have builded it very roughtly, but i was very glad it worked the way i expected.  I've put two hinges in order that the puppet can lean back and forth, on two joints separating the three body parts:  pelvis, abdomen and torso.  

I just have to screw or unscrew the two nuts, you see below, to move both rods.

 

On the final shot, the "Corpser" leans a little backward while pulling his front claws in the air and leans forward on a quick deadly blow on the character.  It was very important for me to separate these parts to recreate this movement, naturally as possible.

Here's a first quick test of the body's armature test.

On next week, i want to add the legs wires to the armature with the epoxy putty and to start sculpting the head and add the LEDs lights inside of it.

"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and I'm all outta gum."

Whoa !!  Even with 2 weeks off, i didn't really do anything about my stopmotion project.  There was a lot of shopping, family parties, hangovers, outdoors activities, etc...  Despite all these things, i managed (at least) to document myself about all the things i should know about building up a stopmotion puppet.  I've read and digged many fellow's blogs and Youtube's channels about casting molds, creating latex skins, painting puppet, etc...

I've also prepared a grocery list of all the things useful i could think of and bought them.  The only thing missing is Pros-Aide.  I couldn't find any place around selling that and because we are winter time, they don't recommend shipping by now.  So i'll wait for that if tinting the latex doesn't give nice results.

In the next days, i'll do many tests with the construction methods i've learned, in order to find the one i'm the more comfortable with.  I'll keep you inform with my results.

Here's my shopping cart.

2010 was a year which i've learned a lot about all the basics of stopmotion.  The only thing that was missing was the puppet construction part.  This is what i want to work on the most in 2011.

Corpser first sketch on paper (Scale 1:24)

I just tried a first sketch on paper with the monster i have to build up for my last sequences.  It's called a "Corpser" in the Gears of War's world.  It looks like a giant spider.  I was lucky enough to find someone (<  Profess >) on the Epicgames forum to send me some pictures of it from the game, with a human standing on his side. 

The point was to be able to build it with the proper scale, comparing it to my character that is 3 inches tall.  After some arithmetics, the results was that it needs to be 21 inches tall by 15 inches wide (without it's legs).  Kindda big...  I need to say that from begining of my project, the idea was to put everything on the same scale (1:24).

I didn't draw the eight legs on this paper sketch.  They fit in the six holes that you can see and two more comes from the sides.  In this position, the creature is leaning a bit forward.  The head isn't big enough by the way, and the point here was not to do a great drawing, but to get familiar with the proportions of each body parts.  I'm kindda shy to show this after digging all the afternoon Jeff Lafferty's blog :)    

I wasn't really sure that it's was a good idea to build it with Super Sculpty anymore...  Super Sculpty allows the creation of tiny details, but with a beast of this size, it would have had to heavy legs to animate them properly.  It would have also required too much material and would have end up too expensive.  My wife was joking when i told her about my problem, when she told me that i could use "papier mache" to built it...  It's not a very bad idea, but i don't think it would have fit very well with the all the other kind of materials i've use so far.  I also need to say that i only need this puppet in two sequences that are two and four seconds long, so i don't want it to be too expensive and too complicated to build.

I'm now more into the idea to sculpt it smaller, maybe at 6-8 inches high, with Super Sculpty and use clay for the joints.  For the armature, i'll use twisted wires.  Even if i'm not very comfortable with the idea, i'll shoot the sequence that includes both the beast and the character on two differents layers and combine them in post-production.  I'll probably use a green screen for that.

The final sculpt should look like that.

Putting LED lights inside the skull would be very nice, but i think that's a big challenge enough even if there isn't, so i'll probably pass on that.