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March 26, 2007
armature teaser
by sven at 11:59 pm
I just wanted to tease y'all a little... Saturday (3/25) I started work on a new armature.
The big picture:
- steel again
- actual ball-and-socket joints (rather than open-hole)
Design improvements:
- square stock at neck for better attachment of head
- body blocks perpendicular to incoming rods
- different shoulder design, to increase range of motion
- step-block wrist joints
- wire fingers
- ankles closer to soles of feet
- hinged toes
Changes in the construction process:
- drilling balls using mill (instead of lathe)
- brazing using oxy-propane "little torch"
- cleaning balls using Scotch-Brite pads
- doing rough-cuts using mini cut-off wheel
- on the mill, I've learned how to use a "wiggler" for locating edges
- using drill press for through-holes
- sandwich plates radiused using grinder (rather than a jig and rotary table)
- trimming the joints using Scotch-Brite wheel on grinder
- handy metal bowls to keep groups of parts together
More soon!
posted by sven | March 26, 2007 11:59 PM | comments (6) | categories: stopmo
Comments
can't wait, can't wait.
I am interested to see what you do with the shoulders.
Hinged toes - advances all around
Posted by: mark F. at March 27, 2007 12:15 AM
There's going to be a sandwich plate at the shoulder, and another at the upper arm. It sorta makes the shoulder double-jointed -- but it should get around the "no zombie-sleepwalker pose" problem in the previous design.
I don't really think this new shoulder will work all that well. I'm anticipating that it may get kinked up... But I want to find out how it works hands-on. I'm taking inspiration from some Aardman and Juergen Kling armatures here...
My sense is that you can't get really decent shoulders without step-block joints... And that, really, swivel/hinge assemblies are what you ultimately want. (Like you can see in the Nightmare Before Christmas book, and on some of the fancier stuff on LIO's site.)
Speaking of shoulders -- take a look at Kong's! It's a really crazy solution -- but it does get around the zombie-sleepwalker issue!
Posted by: sven at March 27, 2007 12:29 AM
Cool man....
I wana take a sven armature making workshop!!
jriggity
Posted by: justin rasch at March 27, 2007 12:13 PM
Well, hey -- I want to take a Justin animating class! Maybe we could work something out?!
My machines are portable, so it's actually not out of the question. I could conceive of coming down to L.A. again...
(Gotta rectify having accidentally snubbed Michael Granberry the last time I came through!)
Schedule-wise, it's not going to be for at least another three months -- second quarter is my main window of time for finally finishing Let Sleeping Gods Lie.
But, hm... I could see having a mini-stopmoe conference in L.A. You and Shelley and Michael are already there... Mark Fullerton is potentially within driving distance...
I dunno if there's anyone else we'd want to bring in, but there's definitely something to think about here!
Posted by: sven at March 27, 2007 12:39 PM
SWEEEET! Let us know!
I would gladly pass on some tips.
jriggityPosted by: justin rasch at March 28, 2007 4:24 PM
I would very much like a Sven armature workshop and a Justin performance/pushing workshop. Both of you are supremely gifted in those specific areas and seeing a little of what you do would enrich my life tremendously. I'd be so grateful.
My dream would be for a slew of us to gather in one place and trade what we do best with each other so that each one went away from the experience armed to create with greater versatility than they would have aquired otherwise.
Perhaps Podcasts for this would be good enough? Although, there's isn't much that can compare with being in the same room.
Posted by: shelley Noble at March 29, 2007 11:02 PM