Progress

Here's my progress as of late



Here's an early progress shot of the foamed puppet. Notice the one pink foot (this was a test)



Here's the very first test I did where I removed the rig. happy with the result of this test, you cant' really see any reminiscence of the rig.



Here's the puppet with a few more facial details. The teeth and nose were made from normal oven bake sculpey. The ears, tongue and eyelids were made from bendable sculpey. The ears were a little too thick to be able to bend the ears themselves, but I can still move them from the point where the wire connects to the head. Also, I thought they looked a little odd just fleshy like that and I decided to add some fur backing to them later on, which was a diversion from the original design.



Here's a pic showing all the eyelids, just as they came out of the oven. That setence sounds quite wrong. Haha. Anyway, I needed to use replacement eyelids because the bendable sclupey didnt really morph as much as I thought it would out of the oven. Still, this option is okay and it looked good on the puppet.



I decided to paint the eyelids and glue some fur onto them just so they looked more natural.



Here's the puppet's features painted and glazed.



Close up. If you notice the tongue is movable and can also bend. I put wire inside it!



Next it was time to fur the puppet. Which was quite a lengthy process. Here you can see an extremely strange shot of him covered in tape and markings for the pattern to cut. It's easier to do this way!




I cut off the tape and put it into invididual pieces. This must be done or to get the form right.



The patten drawn onto the back of the fabric. I had to make sure the fur was going the right way for all the features.



Here's the head and the tail furred. Both of the fur is the same material. The face looked VERY strange before I trimmed and shaved it. I should have gotten a photo; he looked like one of those shaggy dogs. Anyway, shaving the fur was what probably took me the longest. Still, worth the effort.

Also note that I entwined the puppet with string. This was mostly because the foam was a bit bulky and he was looking a bit round when I put the fur on to test in some areas. They also work a little bit like tendons for the arms and legs.. It was like making veins for the creature.



Here's the sewed patterns of the back and stomach. All hand sewn! :)



Progress of sewing on the first leg. The legs were shaved too.



After all the fur was applied I put tape on him in the form of stripes and spots. But you can see there is still some colour in the longer parts of the fur.



Here's me using a copic airbrush to get some more colour onto the character. The airbrush works by transferring the ink from a copic marker by using canned air.



Some progress of the airbrushing.



And finally.. HE'S FINISHED!!!!

There are a few things I'd still like to try and do if I can.. I'd like it if I could find some whiskers for him somewhere. Also, there's a few touchups I need to do inside the mouth.

I want to note that the mouth doesn't fully close with is an issue. I'll probably have to use pins to shut it when I'm filming it next semester.

Progress

Current progress on my armature. Finished all the armature at this point and I am working on the feet and soon the foam body. Creating the feet is a lengthy process, as I'm working with glue.. but it seems to be a good medium to work in, not too flexible that the wire will break too easily, but not too ridged in movement that I'm limited either.

Here's the whole process to it's current stage:

The design plan in actual measurements. I did make a few tweaks when building the design, moved some things more central in the armature to make it more steady.

Here's the spine. Have to thank Stuart for giving me access to some free copper wire, really bends well but isn't brittle.

Cut and joined the joints of the puppet. Those were some expensive joints. Had to cut them with a hacksaw and file them, but they work great.. They really support the figure in spite of it's weight.

Started adding more wire to the spin for extra support, and made the feet. That clay-like stuff you can see is a two part epoxy that hardens. It's really strong, can be drilled into and sanded. Saved me a lot of time and will holds up well.

Added the head, happy with how the jaw moves. Looks a little strange like this, but it won't for much longer! I also added some aluminium wire to the spine. The head wasn't really just holding up with the copper, but the aluminium "rods" kind of act like the backbone, whereas the copper wire is a bit like the tendons and muscle. This process really has been like creating the bones for an animal. I definitely can feel I'm breathing life into the object, it's almost a spiritual connection. I even talk to it sometimes, as gaudy as that sounds.

I just have to keep working on those feet, then I can start foaming the body. Really looking forward to that process, building the armature has been quite a lengthy and difficult task. Ran into many problems but I have overcome them. Foaming and sewing I'm very confident with, as well as how I'm going to construct the face and eye etc. So the rest will be smooth sailing!

More planning

Designed a more coherent armature plan, pin-pointing exactly where joints will be and I simplified it a lot, removed unnecessary blocks.. The chest piece I removed because it was simply creating too many problems. I decided the more simple I could make it the more time I would save and hopefully have better moving armature. As soon as I get my joints, I'm buying the other materials. I need another induction into the metalwork station at uni as it's been a year since I last worked in there. I will most likely just need to cut things to size.

The next stage, the "foaming" I am also planning. I have collected some soft foam as well as some packaging foam.. I still need some foam that is kind of in the middle but I can probably scrounge something up. The main thing with this is the head needs to be substantial enough material to be able to hold up the eyes, nose and jaw. Jaw will be made from Sculpey which a very light oven-bake clay. I am still looking around to see what material will be best for the feet, nose, tongue and ear. I think I will definitely want to use latex to a description and I will be talking more with Phil about materials as well as some people from Terrapin Puppet Theatre who recently employed me!

The final stage I'm probably the most confident in. I already have the fur and I'm happy with how it looks, I will likely trim it where needed and glue/sew on spots and stripes in white faux fur. I have been looking at taxidermy supplies and techniques which gave me idea of using foam to hold up the fur more realistically. As far as the pattern it won't be too hard to get right, I've done a lot of toy-making in the past so I'm not too worried with this stage. I think also I will glue smaller particles of hair to join between the full coat and latex, just so there's less of a barrier. I haven't drawn them but he will also have whiskers which will will be something like fishing line (of which i have plenty of!).

The eye will be this beauty which I will be ordering tonight (it's a fake hog eye for taxidermy!). I did do some research into my own eyes with resin but I find it'll be pretty time consuming and also a bit out of my budget. I still have to work out exactly how to have the eye so it is moveable. I think if I slip it into a spherical hole with a material glass will slip over I think it will work.

My fur arrived!

So My fur arrived today. Really happy with the quality of it, it actually has small speckled spots which I actually wasn't expecting but it was a very joyous surprise.

I kept being fooled by it when it was sitting on my bed. It already kind of looks alive!

I also did a really basic wire armature to try and scope out the size the creature will be. This experiment definitely told me the creature needs to be a little bigger. My hand is tiny, by the way, not an accurate measuring device! I am going to plan and measure the armature exactly.

More concept art

Getting that final design down before I start planning my puppet's armature etc. Somewhat a mixture of a rat, quoll, numbat and tassie tiger.

Some concept sketches

So these are kind of what have been swirling around in my head at the moment. I drew out quite a few characters, I'm thinking the quoll is closest to what I have in my head - though darker, browner. Needs to go through more changes until I have the final design. Also looking around for fur right now.



I'm not sure if I want the creature to have stripes or not - I'm thinking this will send a certain message out their about the extinction of the tylancine, and perhaps the plans about bringing them back when the technology is available to us. but I suppose it does talk about "bringing something back to life" which is along the lines of where my ideas are headed. I need to really think more about it, but for now these are where my visual ideas are at for now.