Download - The Making of the Puppets
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
1/14
Walter
We Are two university students, studying BA Model
Making at the Arts University college of
Bournemouth www.bmakers.co.uk
Once we had our first meeting, and had decided on the process and materials, we started sculpting
ourcharacter. Walter was to have separate hands and legs, to allow for replacements, and a separate
solid head as a base for moving eyes and multiple mouths. These images are all rough initial sculpts
that were sent to the team to check anything that might need touching up.
Madge
For Madge, the sculpt and designs were being constantly tweaked and updated, thefirstbody sculpts had much bagger clothing, which were later changed to tighter
clothes. The armature included two sets of feet and hands so they had to sculpted
separately, I sculpted the hands with milliput and the first set of shoes which wax.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
2/14
These are the finished sculpts ready to mould. We smoothed them with lighter fluid
andbaby powder to give a good finish.
Once we had a closer look at the armature, we realised they wouldnt allow the feet to be
changed easily. For Walter this wasnt too much of an issue so I attached the feet to be moulded
as one,but Madge needed a change of shoes so we had to still do these separately, and think of
a way to make this still work.
To ensure the eyes fitted within
the cast, we put the same shape
eye in to the sculpt beforemould- ing. This meant that the
eyes would move within the
head.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
3/14
To make the mould we layered clay to create a bed to lay the sculpt on to, and then built up a wall
halfway up the sculpt. This had to be at exactly 90 degrees to ensure no seam line in the cast. Oncewe hadbuilt the wall, and added in the keys, we mixed up the herculite plaster to pour in. We did
this bitbybit, and never poured straight on to the sculpt to prevent any distortion. This is really
important to get
right, as if the sculpt gets damaged before the mould is made, there is no way to save it and would
mean starting from scratch.
The plaster took about an hour to harden(not dry), so we could
then remove the first half and start on the next half. We removed
the clay and cleaned down the plaster without getting it too wet.
We coated the first half in Vaseline as plaster sticks to plaster.
We repeated the herculite process, to build up the second half.
Once this has hardened we removed the sculpt, cleaned both
halves, andput the two halves together so that if they shrank they
would still lock together. The plaster takes a long time to dry so
we put them in to the oven.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
4/14
Although the plaster was not completely bone dry, we had to work quickly, and decided with the
team to go ahead with the foam latex. We knew that foam latex reacts with water, but sometimes
doing an initial cast draws all the remaining water from the mould. We added bleeders to the
mould,prepared the moulds with the release agent, then wrapped the armature with ptfe tape to
prevent the metal reacting with the foam latex. We were ready to mix the foam latex! This was
very precise and needed a lot of concentration. As we had decided to pour in to the separate
halves and place these together, rather than pour in to the mould, we had to work quickly togetherto pour the mix in, then place the armature in the right place, and seal the mould.
Foam latex does not
like water!!!!This was the first attempt for
Walter. The moulds weredefinitely not dry enough
and this was the result after
a day in the oven. Each
time the cast went wrong,
we had to remove the foam
latex,
re apply the tape, re apply
release agent, and re mix
foam latex. We later
learned that in industry theywill do a dummy cast
without the armature to save
time.
The first attempt with Madge, didnt
work properly either, as some of the
armature was visible through the foam
latex and the foam latex hadnt set cor-
rectly so it had finger marks from
where it had been handled which could
be clearly seen. Unfortunately, the
mould had been too wet and when
prizing it apart the mould cracked and
broke, so it had to be glued back
together and filled in.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
5/14
The broken mould. It was glued together
and filled in and luckily on the next
attempt the foam latex worked (below)
Foam latex STILL does not like water!!
We had let the moulds dry in the oven, but
the second attempt for Walter still did not
work.
These are the final casts. We had to trim
off the excess foam latex with nail
scissors.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
6/14
After trimming the seams down, we then soldered
the edges to remove the excess latex and then dusted
with baby powder to prevent it from becoming
sticky.
As Madge had detachable legs, they had to be fit-
ted into the armature, when casting the mould with
foam latex, some thin brass tubing had been put
into the legs to make the armature more easily
accessible. Then a hole had to be made with the
soldering iron to access the joint to allow it bescrewed in with an allen key, and then the hole was
covered bypainting over latex mixed with latex
thickener.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
7/14
We poured the silicone to create a block mould for the heads and hands, then cut them open,removed the sculpts and created a pour hole and bleeder. The heads were made from fast cast, and
below are the first casts.They needed to have a blank space to
allow for removeable mouths, so we used a
drem- mel to remove this from the cast and
create a master. We could then sculpt each
mouth
within this space to ensure they would all
fit. We used super sculpey which hardenedinplace, then we baked it in the oven.
Once we had decided on a colour and size for the eyes, we had
to sand the back off, fill with car body filler, and glue together
eachpiece. They had to be completely rounded so that theywould move freely within the head.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
8/14
To encase the eyes within the head, they had to sit in place in the mould
before pouring the fast cast. This meant coating the eyes with Vaseline
and delicately place them into the mould without them moving.
These attempts show that fast cast does not like Vaseline! We needed
enough to allow the eyes to move, but this made them look disfigured,
butby applying less meant they were fixed in the head. Also, everytime
we had to cast a head, we had to prepare they eyes which was time
consuming.To make the eyes able to be animated,we had to drill pin sized holes in the
pupil. This could then be moved a
fraction with a pin for each frame.
Weput ink in to where we had drilled
to make it unnoticable.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
9/14
For the eyes, we needed a solution, asthe vasaline was definitely not work-
ing. It was time consuming and a
waste of materials. Luckily, our course
mate, Tom Anderson, was there to save
the day. He suggested sawing a good
look- ing cast that already had the eyes,
re-placing them with fresh eyes, and
then filling the gap. This meant the
face would look good but would still
have eyes that moved. It workedperfectly and meant we could then
move on to the next stage. Thanks
Tom!!
We attempted putting hot glue in to the silicone
moulds for the hands while he armature was in
them, but it didnt fill in to all of the fingers, andonce it had set there wasnt much movement in
the fingers.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
10/14
So we used the silicone moulds to make fast cast hands, to then make plaster moulds from.
We used the same process as the bodies. This meant we could make latex hands which would
be a lot more flexible allowing the animation to be a lot more realistic. We made each hand
using all thebolts provided, filed the wrist in to a cube so that it would fit, and the fingers from
wire.
We then painted latex
and latex thickener in to
each half. This meant
that the hand would
have a strong skin forthe latex to sit in. We
wrapped the armature in
tape, placed them in to
tubing so that when they
were cast they would
have a hole for the arm
to sit in. Then weput
them in the mould, then
poured the latex in to a
hole.This shows the moulds
with the latex and arma-
ture in, sat drying, and
the below shows
Madges latex hand
being trimmed.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
11/14
We began painting the puppets with a 50/50 mix oflatex and acrylic paint which would
stick to the foam latex. We began by dabbing the paint on with a sponge,beginning
with a white coat and then sponged on colour. We then painted on the finer details
with a paint brush.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
12/14
We then repeated the process for the head and
hands.
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
13/14
This was our first ever time working with a client, so was difficult working out a realistic time frame.
Foam latex is extremely temperamental so there is no way of predicting when it will work, and the time
frame didnt allow the precision that we would have preferred. However, we have learnt so much that next
time it would allow us to prevent mistakes that we made this time. It was a higher level of work than we
were prepared for, but this meant that we have benefitted by proving what we are capable of, to our tutors,
and to ourselves. We are extremely proud of what we achieved in the time given, and without the guidance
that may havebeen expected. We were glad to have shared the experience with each other.Charlie: I found this project exciting, rewarding, and at times over whelming. Although it was a far
bigger project than we initially thought, and sometimes very stressful, I dont regret taking it on at all. I
have learnt how to use new materials, how to work under pressure, and how hard it is to meet a clients
standard. This has definitely prepared me for industry and am very happy to have completed theproject.Sophie: This project has been invaluable in helping me to understand new methods and materials, the
knowl- edge I have gained from this has prepared me for the future, including encouraging me to work in
industry confidently. It was very rewarding and Im very happy to have been a part of it, even though it was
very stress- ful, hard and demanding. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and what I gained was
worth the tears!!!
We are very grateful and honoured to have been a part of this production.We would like to thank Phil Andrews, Tom Anderson and Faith Wong for their invaluable help.
WHAT A MESS!!!! :)
-
8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets
14/14