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March 6, 2006
puppet #2: percy five
by sven at 5:21 am
It took me a full month -- from February 5 to March 5 -- but I've finally completed my new puppet: Percy!
My first puppet, Moon Baby, met an untimely demise even before he was complete. So technically this is my first puppet... But we will count Percy as #2, out of respect for M.B. -- he may yet rise again!
When last we saw our hero, I had just opened up his head to hollow it out, because it had been too heavy. Since the head was open, I decided I ought to slip some sort of symbolic soul inside... Since Mike Brent has helped me (and so many others) so much in my quest to learn puppet-making, I decided a dedication was appropriate. Thank you Mike!
I glued the back of the head on with Duco cement. I smeared Super Sculpey into the crack and gave the head a quick bake. After sanding the whole thing down, you can't tell that Percy ever underwent brain surgery. ...In this photo you can see the little hole in the back of his head -- that's where I tighten the screw that attaches head to neck.
I had planned to attach eyelids onto the head using magnets. However, the eyelids for this puppet had to be smaller than the test eyelids I made, so it didn't look like that was going to work out. It might have been possible if I'd had some very tiny magnets on hand... But I didn't -- and I wanted to avoid drilling into the front of the face, now that I had a decent sculpt.
So, instead of using magnets, I decided that I should be able to keep the eyelids in place using museum wax. It's not ideal -- but it does work. It's fussier to take eyelids off and put them back on than it should be; this is going to discourage me from doing much with blinks.
To make the eyelids, I put aluminum foil on top of the face, and then pushed the wooden eyeballs into their sockets. When I was done sculpting the eyelids with Super Sculpey, I gently pulled the aluminum out of the eyesockets, and put the eyeballs and lids into a toaster oven. (The eyeballs helped the lids keep their shape.)
On to the hands...
My original hand design involved wrapping thread around the finger wires, and then painting the thread with liquid latex. The principle is sound -- but it was taking a million years to do the wrapping -- and it was such fine work, it made my hands hurt. So, after getting through just two fingers, I abandoned this plan and decided to come up with a new design.
I experimented with putting short pieces of wire into a drill bit, using the drill to do the winding for me. This worked very well! The plug-in drill, which is stronger than the cordless drill, actually worked best. It got the job done quite quickly -- but I did need to wear a glove on the hand that was guiding the thread, to avoid rope burn. ...I didn't think to take a picture of it, but the spool of thread is actually attached to my sewing machine. Having the spool sit on a dowel that's stuck into a piece of wood would probably do the job just as well.
It was surprising just how noticable the thickness of the thread was. If you try this technique, I definitely recommend using an extremely fine thread. Strength doesn't matter much -- the thread just bulks out the wire -- liquid latex holds the whole thing together. I tried dipping the finger into the liquid latex; that gave me globby results. Painting three coats of latex on with a brush worked much better. I used a hair dryer sitting in my lap, propped against the edge of the desk, to make the latex dry more quickly.
After making a batch of these odd little latex maggots, I tried binding them together with the tubing that attaches the hand to the wrist. (I had to make a new batch of these joints after deciding to redesign the hands.) The concept looked promising, but tape clearly wasn't going to be enough to hold it all together. I drew some sketches of a more complicated design, where each of the fingers would have some exposed wire that could be epoxy glued into a small piece of aluminum; the brass joint would be silver soldered into a slot in the palm of the hand.
At this point I both ran out of thread, and the head of my dremel broke.
It was late in the evening, and stores were closed. I couldn't stand spending one more day fussing around with the hands, so I decided to give up on movable fingers and just make the hands out of Super Sculpey. Since the hands are detachable, I can always go back and try a new design if I want. ...It turns out that I'm pretty happy with this sculpt, though, so it's unlikely that I'll get back to the complicated design -- at least on this puppet.
In the photo of the hands, you see them already painted. Figuring out what I wanted to do with the skin tone took a long time in itself. I know I spent at least two, if not three hours one night experimenting with acrylics in a sketchbook, looking for just the right layering of colors...
What I finally settled on was three coats of paint: first, brushing on a light magenta base coat; then sponging on a peachy-tan made from white, brown, red, and yellow; and finally, lightly sponging on white with just a tint of the previous peachy-tan. ...I'm not sure how much of this will show up in photos -- but in person, I feel the color has great depth to it. It has a pale, almost newborn quality to it, which I was looking for.
To figure out what color I wanted for the clothes, I did lots of tests. I laid the naked puppet face down on the photocopier, and made a bunch of copies that I could paint on. This is a puppet being made without a story in mind -- so I wanted a fairly neutral "everyman" costume that could fit in lots of settings. ("Percy" is the actor's name. Hopefully he'll get to star in many roles.)
I settled on a sort of New England blue, mixed with grays. In the photo above, you can also tell that I've done more sculpting work on the cushion foam body -- Percy's still curvy, but not nearly as zaftig as he was in my initial post.
Mike Brent has a neat trick in his "Simple puppet fabrication" tutorial that I wanted to try, where you use a pair of gloves to make a shirt and pants. After some looking around, I found some white cotton gloves at Columbia Art and Drafting Supply. Unfortunately, I realized too late that Mike's puppet is about six inches tall, and mine measures in at nine and a half. Hoping that I could somehow stretch the fabric, I forged ahead with the fabric dyeing process... That was a waste of several hours.
Since using gloves for clothing didn't work out, I was left with having to make the clothes by hand. To do this, I had to come up with a custom-designed pattern. I started by creating a mock shirt on the puppet using masking tape...
I carefully cut the masking tape shirt off the puppet, and then traced the outlines of these pieces onto graph paper. I tidied up the shapes and added in extra space for seams. When I thought I had a pretty good shape, I'd lay a piece of tissue paper (the kind you wrap presents with) on top of the graph paper, and trace the design. I cut the piece out of the tissue paper, and tested it on the puppet's body.
Here you can see three steps in the process of making a pattern for the arm of the shirt: masking tape, graph paper, and tissue paper. The costume is a simple shirt and pants ensemble; it turns out that this required four patterns: a pant leg, a sleeve, the shirt's front, the shirt's back. When I tested the tissue paper on the puppet, I innevitably discovered tweaks that I wanted to make, and went back to the graph paper for adjustments.
When the patterns were finalized, I glued the graph paper onto cardboard from cereal boxes; I cut the patterns out to make templates. I went to that delicious monstrosity, Fabric Depot, and chose a fine white cotton knit (with a percentage of lycra) for Percy's costume. I traced the templates onto the fabric, and cut the cloth...
In retrospect, I should have dyed the cloth before cutting -- but at first I thought that I was going to test the fabric before committing... And then I liked how it all was working out, and kept the first attempt. Rather than use a sewing machine, I used fabri-tac glue to put the pieces together. The glue was excellent -- it was easy to control, and bonded cloth within seconds. (My one concern is that it seemed to go through Nitrile gloves, making the insides sticky. The label says acetone is one of its ingredients; I'll have to look into what can hold up against that.)
With the end in sight, I didn't take many more photos. I dyed the clothes using acrylic paints. Mixing the right colors took a long time. Any smudges of glue on the cloth acted like resists, which was annoying. The shirt was tricky to assemble, the arms being attached to the body of the shirt last of all.
For the neck, wrists, and ankles, I used a trick I invented with Moon Baby: wrapping dyed string around the joints. It's a stylized look, but I like it. After getting the joints taken care of, I realized that the shirt is short enough that when Percy bends over his back shows. It's not a very good solution, but I wrapped some more string around his midriff to conceal the foam when the clothing gapes. The string acts a lot like a corset, changing the shape of the body, which is not what I want.
...And here he is!
In the book Learning by Heart, by Corita Kent and Jan Steward, there's a passage that says puppetmakers in India always save the eyes for last -- the eyes giving the puppet life. I thought that was a great idea, so I did the eyes last too. I drilled little holes in wooden balls, put short strands of wire in the holes, and then put the wires in a drill bit. The drill spinning the spheres made it relatively easy to paint round irises. (This is a trick I picked up from Susannah Shaw's book, Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation.)
By the way: The name "Percy" came to me while I was in the shower one day, as a diminutive for "Perseus". When I checked my mythology, it was actually Theseus and the Minotaur I was thinking of -- but the name had stuck. I added the surname "Five" just this morning, thinking about how I began and and finished this puppet on the fifth of the month. I dunno -- the name "Percy Five" just sorta has a pleasant sci fi sound to it that I like.
posted by sven | March 6, 2006 5:21 AM | comments (13) | categories: stopmo
Comments
I've been refining a check-list for how to analyze puppet construction (http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/blog/archives/2006/02/howtoanalyze.html). As an experiment, I thought I'd apply the check-list to my own puppet. There's probably someone out there who's as crazy for details as I am...
ANALYSIS OF CONSTRUCTION: "Percy Five"
1. Scale: 9.5 inches tall (roughly 1:8)
2. Wire type: 1/16" almaloy aluminum wire, hand-twisted
3. Wire configuration: 3 lengths -- one for the legs, one for the neck and spine, one for the arms; 3 strands of wire for legs and spine lengths, 2 strands for the arms
4. Torso and pelvis: plumber's 20 minute epoxy putty
5. Limb bones: also plumber's 20 minute epoxy putty
6. Wire attachment points: K&S brand square tubing for at wrists and top of neck for detachable head and hands; arm and leg wires just go directly into the epoxy body blocks at the hips and shoulders
7. Head: Super Sculpey, baked, sanded and painted with acrylic; hollowed out because it was originally too heavy; K&S tubing hidden in neck, with a 4-40 brass hex nut soldered on, and a 4-40 x 1/8" socket set screw inside the nut
8. Face: eyes are wooden balls held in their sockets by Super Sculpey eyelids which are attached with museum wax; eyes move, no other facial articulation
9. Hands: made from Super Sculpey, no articulation; K&S tubing hidden in wrists, with 4-40 brass hex nuts soldered on, and a 4-40 x 1/8" socket set screw inside the nut
10. Feet and tie-downs: wood feet with inset hex nut; tie-downs are 10-24 x 2.5" machine screws with wing-nuts
11. Neck, wrists, ankles: wrapped with cotton string dyed with acrylic paints
12. Musculature: cushion foam purchased at Michael's, adhered to armature with Elmer's brand spray glue; cuts in the foam at knee, hip, waist, and shoulder
13. Clothes: fine white knit (93% cotton, 7% lycra), dyed with acrylic paints; homemade pattern, fabric was "sewn" with Fabri-tac glue
Posted by: sven at March 6, 2006 11:03 AM
Hey! That's looking terrific! Too bad it took you so long, but what can you do...I was checking, and my current project has also taken a month right now, and I haven't started animating the thing yet!!!!! I might try the idea for the hands someday, but clay fingers with no armature work really GREAT so far, 'cause they are short and strong enough to keep their position. But they get all dirty and messed up in a few hours... Also the next time I animate human-like characters, I'll definetly do them using cloth. It's MUCH easier (I did one like that once, maybe I'll show it someday...)to animate, 'cause you don't need to worry about dirt, or smashing the puppet! The bad thing is that it doesn't have the same look!
Percival is looking awesome...he's got a monk kinda look if you ask me. One thing I don't like that much is the similarity of the shirt and pants colors. They should (in my opinion) contrast a bit more: see how the red string gives the puppet a GREAT look? When you put 2 colors that look similar next to each other, they never look good...it's a fashion designer tip :P You could add a very different color belt, dividing the shirt and the pants, and I'm sure it'll look MUCH better!
Alright...I'll go to sleep now! Congrats! can't wait to see some testing!
Posted by: Ale at March 6, 2006 7:21 PM
Oh! I forgot to tell you, I added a link to this blog at the links section of my page, but your logo is a bit too big compared to the other links...have you got a smaller one? Thx
Also your pagerank (Google's 'how good this page is' thingy)has gone up to 4!!! Congrats man!
Posted by: Ale at March 6, 2006 7:29 PM
ale: about the logo, just set the width to be whatever you want in pixels (IMG width=150 or whatever).
sven: congratulations! i love the red string contrast at the wrists & neck. i suspect filming won't pick up on the prussian blue, instead making both the shirt & pants shades of grey, but it still works, i think. btw, what will you do if you ever make a character w/ hair? :) is hair its own checklist item or is it part of "head"?
Posted by: gl. at March 6, 2006 11:19 PM
Wow.....
I'm deeply honored! It's kinda crazy thinking about my name rattling around in the dark inside that head. I hope it doesn't give Percy a complex!
Great work on all of it. You demonstrate excellent problem solving skills young Jedi! Fabri tack is great stuff, but I must say I prefer real stitches for main seams. I like to just stitch the pieces together right on the puppet, turned inside-out, and then trim off the extra cloth and pull it off, turning it right-side-out as it goes, then pull it back on him the right way. I got a set of multicolored threads, now I can match any color nicely.
Posted by: Darkstrider at March 7, 2006 5:28 AM
Hey gl., about changing the logo size, I tried it obviously, but it becomes unreadable 'cause it's such a thin font...
Posted by: Ale at March 7, 2006 2:53 PM
PercyFive looks awesome, maybe he'd like to come over sometime? My Jenny Greenteeth puppet has been a bit lonely......and hungry...:)
Posted by: Ubatuber at March 7, 2006 4:28 PM
hey, ale, let me know what size you want it & i'll send you one; maybe a white background will be more legible... it's sort of designed to be scrawl, anyway. :)
Posted by: gl. at March 7, 2006 6:46 PM
Hey gl. I guess a bit smaller than as I have it now in my Links section....if not that's OK...don't worry
Posted by: Ale at March 8, 2006 8:14 AM
Hey Ale -- Thanks!
From what I've seen of your projects, I'd think clay hands are probably the way to go. Me, I just don't like the look of plasticene very much... I want mottled colors; clay colors always look flat to me. But boy -- It would sure be easier to animate hands if I was using it!
...I see what you're saying about the similar grays in Percy's clothing. He'd definitely be more fashionable with a bit more color! :-P ...What I have in mind here, though, is to convey that he's sort of plain on the outside, but has a "hidden core of fire." I'm thinking that the landscapes I want him in will be gnarly and colorful -- so the grey will be a sort of calm center in that context.
Posted by: sven at March 9, 2006 1:57 PM
gl. -- thank you! You're right, the blue pretty much disappears, leaving just gray on screen. Drat. Still, I tend to be very attuned to the tone of colors, and I'm satisfied with the shades of the grays that I'm getting.
Re hair: Maybe rather than having a category for "head" I should say "skull", since what I'm trying to get at there is the basic structure of the head. Hair I'd probably lump in with "face" at this point, since it's an embelishment on the basic head. (When I started developing this check-list, I think I was looking at a fair number of heads that don't have any moving parts.)
...If I do hair at some point, it'll probably be similar to what I've done for my 3D collages: colorful yarn -- but with ultra-thin wires embedded, so it can writhe and wiggle if I want it to.
Posted by: sven at March 9, 2006 2:07 PM
Mike --
You deserve a little recognition, man! ...Percy will be fine. He's the contemplative type. I'm sure by this point the words in there have divided and subdivided, and now his brain is stuffed with all sorts of ideas. Little ticker-tapes of thoughts will be spilling out his ears any day now! LOL
Re clothes: Ah! I've seen you (?) mention sewing clothes directly onto puppets before, but I didn't get the part about sewing them on inside out -- that makes much more sense. I couldn't figure out what kind of stitch would be hiding the seams adequately.
...Do you have any photos in your archives that show off the clothing you've done? Even just using Fabri-tac, the clothes were fussy work; sewing seems like it would be worse. Maybe if I had a little inspiration, seeing what can be accomplished, it'd help me get over my prejudice...
(Of course, from a realism point of view, it makes total sense that one should stitch clothing. I was hoping that gluing would simulate very fine stitching...)
Posted by: sven at March 9, 2006 2:22 PM
Ubatuber -- Thank you!
I asked Percy about whether he'd like me to take him to meet Jenny. He said she sounded like a lovely person, and that he was feeling a bit peckish himself. We made cucumber sandwiches and tea, and over brunch talked about how to properly press summer flowers. (Percy's a wizard in the garden.) We parted happily, and I went back home.
Hm. I think I've been hoodwinked... Maybe Percy's on to you. ;-)
Posted by: sven at March 9, 2006 2:32 PM