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February 15, 2006
tutorial: how to analyze puppet construction
by sven at 8:40 pm
For a little more than two months now I've been feverishly studying how to make puppets for stop motion animation. In the process, I've developed a useful checklist of 11 things to look at when you're studying a particular puppet's design.
The checklist works for puppets that use a wire armature with latex and foam build-up. [If you need background knowledge on what that means, refer to my post on the basics of stopmo puppet construction.] It is designed with mainly humanoid characters in mind.
A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING PUPPET CONSTRUCTION:
When you examine a puppet's design, attempt to describe the eleven following features...
The Basic Wire Armature
- Wire
a. What metal is used?
b. What gauge?
c. How many strands?
d. Twisted, untwisted, braided? Body blocks (torso and pelvis)
Limb bones
Attachment points
Focus Areas
- Head
a. eyes
b. mouth
c. eyebrows & ears Hands
Feet & tie-downs
Neck, wrists, ankles
Covering for the Main Body
- Musculature
a. Material?
b. What adhesive?
c. How are joints dealt with? Clothes
Skin
Example: Analyzing Mike Brent's puppets
Right now I'm working on a puppet that's inspired by Mike Brent's designs. But what makes a Mike Brent puppet different from other puppets? I know, it's not an entirely fair question; Mike has written about several designs he's done. For the purpose of this exercise, I'm looking mainly at his "Simple puppet fabrication" tutorial, his improptu tut on making hands, and a post where he talks about using urethane upholstery foam.
1. Wire: aluminum armature wire (lead wire broke); wire is hand-twisted (untwisted wire for the "Buster" puppet)
2. Body blocks: epoxy putty
3. Limb bones: cloth tape ("Buster", however, doesn't have bones)
4. Attachment points: wires are fixed directly into the epoxy putty; the wires of a limb are twisted together into a single strand at the point where they enter the putty
5. Head: no movable features; Super Sculpey, baked directly onto the wire (Mike says he often casts heads in resin, though)
6. Hands: the ends of the three arm wires form the middle three fingers, a loop of wire is attached with epoxy putty to create the remaining two
7. Feet & tie-downs: wood feet with a hex nut set in place with epoxy putty; regular machine screw for tie-down
8. Neck, wrists, ankles: for the neck, the finger of a latex glove is glued to the head with Barge contact cement while being stretched
9. Musculature: cushion foam (Mike's disavowed use of polyfil batting); adhered using Barge cement; where possible, piercing the foam with an Exacto-knife rather than gluing separate blocks together
10. Clothes: cotton or leather gloves are turned into shirts and pants
11. Skin: not applicable
posted by sven | February 15, 2006 8:40 PM | comments (3) | categories: stopmo
Comments
Hey, this is some good stuff! This should become a Newbie Guide chapter or be somehow preserved for posterity. Just a couple things i can think of to add....
On the simple Puppet I actually glued the polyfil on using superglue and Elmer's, and in some places just held it on with tape where it would be covered. It was an exercise in "how quick and dirty can I make a puppet that's still animatable?". Once you've done that, nothing seems impossible any more.
If someone wants to use some kind of non-flexible glue (maybe because Barge is very toxic, or they don't happen to have any) it might work to just kind of "spot-weld", using little dabs of glue rather than making a big inflexible crust inside the puppet. Not sure how well it would work in practice though. I've been trying to find a less toxic flexible contact cement.
I've also heard of stitching pieces of foam together rather than gluing. Never tried it, but sounds promising.
The cloth tape thing worked for bones... but just barely. It was really too flexible. One thing I used to do that worked really well was to wrap a long strip of newspaper around and around the limb until it attains almost the full thickness of the limb. I would keep stretching slightly as I went, to keep it nice and tight, and glue/tape the end in place. It's lightweight and works really well... cheap too!
Posted by: Darkstrider at February 16, 2006 12:23 AM
Ee! You just made my heart flutter.
...I confess, I've been eyeing the Newbie Guide, fantasizing about being able to make a contribution there. Wondering, how does the "submissions process" work?
With the Newbie Guide in mind, I've been working on a document about safety precautions for materials involved in puppet construction: epoxy, latex, Sculpey, solder, etc. It's a topic that doesn't seem to have been addressed much. Obviously everyone can make their own choices -- but I suspect that a lot of people haven't really even considered the matter. And we certainly do work with some toxic stuff...
Thanks for more details on how you put together the "Simple Puppet Tutorial" puppet! I love getting more specific information about what you've tried out.
By the way: Does that puppet have name?
Posted by: sven at February 19, 2006 9:44 PM
It occurs to me that I should add "Scale" to the list of things to look at...
Now that I realize that the puppet in Mike's "Simple puppet fabrication" tutorial is only around 6" tall, it explains why I'm having difficulty using the gloves-as-pants trick on my 9" puppet!
Posted by: sven at February 28, 2006 11:19 AM