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monster month - 22
October 30, 2006
Q&D - 1st pup done
by sven at 11:59 am
(Q&D = "quick and dirty")
Yesterday I finished making making the first of two pups for my current "quick and dirty" animation project.
Around the armature, I wrapped strips from a sheet of cushion foam that I found for cheap at SCRAP! -- "The School and Community Reuse Action Project." I think the foam was 3/8" thick. My strips were about 1" wide, and I held them together with athletic tape.
Around the cushion foam, I wrapped McDavid brand underwrap, which I found at G.I. Joe's (a local sports / automotive store). "Professional quality, pre-taping polyurethane foam underwrap. Used to protect the skin prior to taping."
This stuff does a great job of smoothing out the cushion foam... It would have worked even better if I'd taken a little time to first trim the foam more into shape, using cuticle scizzors.
I used cheap acrylic paints to do up the Sculpey bits. For the flesh tone, I used "bambi brown" (a tan), and then painted over it with a thin layer of white. (In general, I've found that tan + white does a remarkably good job of simulating "caucasian" flesh tones.)
I wanted to try a trick I heard about: spraying on a layer of clear gloss varnish, then a second coat of matte varnish. I thought it might give me a stronger surface...
I'm not entirely happy with the results. The finish is still a little glossier than I'd like, after applying that second coat. And worse, a faint orange color has appeared in places. Why? Possible explanations:
(a) I used Kryolan gloss, and Citadel matte -- maybe they interact badly?
(b) Maybe Citadel varnish is faintly orange naturally, and it became visible because I put on too thick a coat?
(c) Maybe the varnishes began to dissolve the cheap acrylics, leaching out some of the pigments?
I clothed the pup without making patterns first. I just cut out pieces of fabric, glued them on, and then cut off excess. As with Percy's costume, I used Fabri-tac glue to good effect.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with this puppet. It's pretty seriously lopsided -- but hey, that's part of working "quick and dirty." As a final touch, I added little dots of black Sculpey to the eyes. That'll probably work fine, but today I picked up a small pack of black Van Aken plastilina, which I think will work even better.
The one problem with this pup that I want to be sure to remedy in all future pups is how I've dealt with tie-downs and rigging.
The tie-downs are 10-24, which I'm now realizing will create huge holes in the set floor. I want to move to using 4-40 threaded rod and knurled thumb screws for tie-downs, and make that my standard practice. (Marc Spess shows this approach in the excellent Secrets of Clay Animation Revealed! eBook -- and I've seen it used elsewhere, too.)
As for rigging: I forgot to build any rigging points into the armature, and am not sure as of yet how I might rectify the oversight. The character is supposed to spend some time crawling around on a big comfy chair... Which is essentially the same as having him walk on any non-tie-downable surface: you have to use a walking/flying rig to hold the rest of him in place, as just one part of him moves.
The "dad" pup is almost done -- just needs to get clothed now. More about him soon.
posted by sven | October 30, 2006 11:59 AM | comments (4) | categories: stopmo
Comments
That's looking really good! Personally I don't mind the orange stuff (though I can't see it all that clearly in the small pics).... I always prefer a little extra color to add life rather than a flat monochromatic paintjob.
Careful on those 4-40 tiedowns. I'm not sure you can get thumb screws in a long enough length that small.
One thing you might want to try on future similar puppets is to wrap the neck with string and then skin with liquid latex. You can do the wrists the same way. Of course, it makes it a little less quick and dirty.....
Posted by: Darkstrider at October 31, 2006 5:39 AM
Clarification question: Have you experienced the orange tint when using varnish yourself? Or are you saying that you don't mind traces of orange on this particular puppet?
Re 4-40 thumb screws: You may be right -- but looking at the smallparts.com catalog, I think I see what I need. (It's also what I think I'm looking at on p.58 of Marc's eBook.)
Good tip about the neck! I've done string-wrapping before... I don't know why it never occurred to me to do string-plus-dipping on the neck!
Posted by: sven at October 31, 2006 9:23 AM
This kid is adorable, Sven. I love the non-fussy hand-made quality of it and it's skin tones, all eight of them.
Keep going!
I'm thinking Q&D may be THE way to go, for always!
Posted by: shelley Noble at October 31, 2006 12:49 PM
No, I haven't experienced it personally, just sayin'.
I ended up going with a larger tie-down screw for my latest batch-o-pups because the smaller ones were only available in like 1/2" lengths, which I didn't think would be long enough to go through my table and still leave room for a wingnut. Of course, I don't know how thick your table might be, or if you've found some longer thumb screws in that mini size.
Posted by: Darkstrider at October 31, 2006 10:35 PM