Moved!

Being me, I could write a ten page essay on why I moved this blog from blogspot to wordpress, but I'll save you that and give you the link:

stopmojourney.blogspot.com

I've already posted tons more there, if you dig the couple posts you see here, you should definitely go there and check out what I've been up to.

Thanks,

Matt

First Puppet Attempt, Part 1

I'm writing this all waaaaaaaaaaaaay after the fact, so I could lump it all together, but #1, I don't have that much time to write it all at once (I think), and #2 it would probably be tediously long. Especially the way that I write (I am well aware of the fact that I'm long winded). At the end of the final post, I will assess what I've learned and see what I can do better next time. Most of this stuff worked out, and any of the stuff that didn't I will mention along the way. Anyhow, without further ado, here is my first puppet attempt.

I started with a rough sketch of my character. I admit I was at a disadvantage because I had no story in mind whatsoever. Just a burning desire to get to building a puppet. SO, I had no idea what I needed this guy to do, and really, not a lot (read: enough) work went into the character design. But I thought he looked fun, and was worth being a first stab at a puppet. In hindsight, now that I know how much time and work go into making a puppet (A LOT. ALOTALOTALOTALOT), I wish I had put more thought into it, but what the hell, live and learn. 

My puppet building methods are an amalgam of stuff I've gleaned from the web, youtube (lots of youtube), and reading some books. The overwhelming majority of my process is owed to Nick Hilligoss' method and amazing tutorials. Seriously, check him out if you want to learn some stuff.

Anyhow, the drawing is 1:1 to the scale that I wanted the final puppet to be. So, I then used that as a guide to start building my wire armature. I guesstimated how much length I needed to go from the waist, to the right foot, back up, down to the left foot, and back up to the waist again. I ended up having enough to go all the way to the torso, which was good. The wire is actually a twist of two wires (using a drill to twist them together is a good method). So then once you go through the whole thing, its double doubled (or quadrupled, if you will). Makes for a strong, longer lasting armature (as the drawback of using wire is that eventually you will bend it so much that it will break). 

I fed the wire into a piece of K&S brass tubing (superglued) that will be inside the torso (I cut the brass using a hacksaw. Not fun. Future cuts were made using a dremel tool with a cutting wheel). Using this tubing allows me to build the head as a separate piece that slides in later (a good decision). I then created the arms in a similar way.

I skipped over a lot of the rest, as far as photos go. You will see that happen a bunch because I use a lot of stuff that is sticky, gooey, and at time frustrating-- and I just can take pictures. So anyway, flash forward a bit, and you'll see that I've added some JB epoxy putty to attach the arms to the torso. Finger wires to the hands, and attaching 1/4-20 nuts to the feet (for the tie downs). Love, love, love the JB epoxy putty. Easy to use, and hardens in 5 minutes! I then made the rest of the "bones" using Sculpey. The bones are needed so that the armature will bend in the correct spots (IE- the elbows, knees, etc.), instead of being bendable everywhere (not very natural).  Check the package for your epoxy putty when you use it, but the JB - I THINK - can be exposed to temps up to 300 or 350 degrees F. Sculpey needs to be baked at 275F, so, no problems there. 

Here's the body armature standing up. That's it for this time. Next up, I'll show you my putting together of the head!