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January 19, 2008
fish puppet for shelley
by sven at 8:00 am
At Thursday's "virtual open studio," I built a fish puppet for stopmo co-conspirator Shelley Noble.
At the outset, I had more "Halfland"-ish ideas: where the scales would have letters on them, or be made from materials from our collage bins... But the scale of the puppet (uh, size) -- and how lovely it was turning out -- made me ditch those concepts. No big deal. It looks like a puppet version of the fishes I've been painting for years. It's neat just getting to see a 3D version of these.
And regardless of how the project ultimately turned out, it's actually done. Can't knock that, either.
A bit about the construction. The body was made from a bit of scrap wood. I cut off the corners, filed it into shape, and sanded it down.
The side fins and tail are detachable. I drilled holes into the body and hot-glued telescoping K&S in. The larger piece is 7/32", the smaller is 3/16". The purpose of this: the plug-ins serve as rigging points if you want to have the fish suspended in mid-air.
The struts of the fins are made from 1/16" aluminum armature wire. The fin webbing is athletic underwrap -- two layers, which sandwich the wires. The wires are attached to the underwrap with Fabri-Tac glue. So... All the fins and the tail are fully posable for animation.
The whole thing is painted with acrylics. The scales were made with a hole-punch and cardstock that I painted on both sides. I wrapped a little extra underwrap around the places where the K&S plug-ins are, just to disguise them a bit better.
Incidentally, I'm really happy with how the photo turned out. The backdrop is made from two sheets of scrapbooker paper. It's sitting on top of a light table, and I'm pointing a desk lamp at it, which has been covered with a sheet of typing paper. Essentially I'm flooding the scene with diffuse light from all directions.
posted by sven | January 19, 2008 8:00 AM | comments (5) | categories: stopmo
Comments
Oh, my, God! Sven!!! This is so fabtastic!!! I'm flabbergasketed! Not only is this the cutest little version of your super creative whimsical fishies that I adore but that it's a fully animatable puppet!? No way!
I have to say I'm a little moved at reading about how you created her/him. Thinking about such attention to detail for Halfland by another has grabbed me in a delicate place.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I'll make myself feel better by thinking that this isn't just for me but also a grand fun experiment in Interhoosen Art Collaboration!
As a remarkable gift it scores off the charts and it's for an interesting cause as well.
xoxo, bowing low.
Posted by: Shelley Noble at January 19, 2008 9:54 AM
it was my idea to use the ocean/sky scrapbook papers, but i was really impressed with the lighting. it looks dreamy! mine are pretty flat in comparison.
Posted by: gl. at January 19, 2008 1:08 PM
oh, and... rigging points! that's what that was about! holy cow, that's awesome. :)
Posted by: gl. at January 19, 2008 1:10 PM
Wow - excellent design!!
I love it.
jriggityPosted by: justin rasch at January 22, 2008 6:09 PM
I think that is the cutest fish I've ever seen.
Posted by: Emma McCreary at January 23, 2008 5:30 PM