Puppet Head Sculpt- Mail Man Part IV

Hello,
It's been a while since my last post, so I think I'll bet back into the swing of things by continuing with the process of creating the Mail Man character's head. You can find my previous posts about the puppet head sculpting process through the following links- Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3.

So far the two puppet heads have been cast, along with all the magnetic, replaceable face pieces, which have also been given different expressions using Super Scupley, sculpted onto each piece. The next stage is to test the sculpting on each replaceable face piece to see if they work on camera.

Pictured above is a small set up I created on my desk to photograph each of the face pieces. The main puppet head part was secured in place and in turn every replaceable face piece was attached and photographed. Using a laptop I could then flick through each image, checking how well each expression transitioned from the next. I was also looking out for any sculpting errors or unwanted bulges that needed changing, which I could then quickly correct at my desk and re-photograph.

Once I was happy with with each piece, they were baked in an oven to harden the Super Sulpey clay. After cooling, I could then start sanding each of the parts to make them extra smooth and remove any small bumps around the seam of the sculpted mouths.

I started with a more coarse sandpaper and slowly worked my way up to a higher grit sandpaper, finishing with a very fine wetordry paper. The pieces were then ready for the painting process.

Paint

Before any paint was applied, The back of each piece was masked to stop any unwanted paint from disturbing the way each of the faces connect to the head. The parts were then  mounted onto small cones of spare plasticine and arranged on the spraying surface. The cones hold the pieces above the surface, stopping any paint from pooling around the bottom of any parts.  

Next, The first coat of primer was applied. I decided to use a matt, white primer because I didn't want the parts to become too shiny, and white is a good good base colour for the flesh tone. A darker primer might have caused the final flesh tone to be less vibrant.

The first coat was only lightly misted on, to help bring out the surface detail. Any small imperfections all of a sudden become visible and can now be corrected. That means more sanding!

On a few of the faces, small seam lines appeared where the Sculpey mouth joined to the resin face. Most of the time these disappeared with a bit more sanding.

In some cases they needed filling. For this I used Super glue, lightly flooding the seam and letting it dry. The glue dried quickly and could then be sanded flush to the surface, making the seam...ta daaaaaa....disappear!

The faces could then be re-primed, misting on each coat until evenly covered. Once dry, I gave the faces a skin tone using a matt flesh coloured spray.

Pictured above are the mouth pieces once prayed, dried with all masking removed. The next step is to add all the details to the mouth and teeth.

Colours were added using acrylic paints. I used a small brush to paint the inside of each mouth black first, followed by an off white of the teeth. The detail of the hair was brought out by dry brushing a lighter brown over a darker base colour creating highlights and depth.

To bring some variation to the skin I decided to use chalk pastels. This was used to add subtle gradients of colour and give the skin a healthy glow.

I used a pink coloured pastel to add a rosiness to the cheeks and around the eyes. The chalks are scratched onto paper to create a small pile up of dust. Using a small stiff brush, I dusted the chalk dust onto the surface where I wanted the colour and slowly, in a circular motion worked in the dust. This was then sealed using a dull coat spray (I use Testor's Dull Coat). The colour can be built up in layers and different chalk dusts can be mixed to create more colours.

Above is a picture of the puppets face with chalk pastels added. The effect is subtle, but makes a big difference. Both sets of eyes have also been created by drilling holes for the iris and pupil using a rotary tool. They were then painted with acrylics and covered in gloss to create a shine. The eyes will later be controlled and positioned using a pin to turn the eye in the socket.

The Mail Man's eye browns were sculpted using Super Sculpey Bake & Bend clay. This clay bakes in the oven like regular sculpey, however, It remains flexible like rubber. This should prevent the eyes brows from snapping since they are so small and delicate. They were also sculpted in the correct colour clay so they wont need painting, and the colour won't scratch off. The eye brows will be moved onto each replaceable brow piece in use during filming, and will be held in place using tacky wax. this will also allow the eye brows to be moved and animated on the brow.

The Finished Puppet Head

Here is a picture of all the parts of the puppets head, painted and finished.

There are twenty mouth pieces for the two puppets, along with five different brows for each head.

Here are a few images of the Mail Man with different expressions.

I am pleased with the way this character's head has turned out. This is the first time I have ever built a puppets face using this technique.The replaceable faces are very easy to use and should make animating the face much quicker and easier. As a sculptor, I'm also pleased with the level of facial detail this method allows, and how close this puppet is to it's original designs.

In post production the seam across the eyes will be removed.

All is going well so far, Nathan's puppet of our actress character 'Elle' is looking very nice. This head sculpt has also been a lot of fun to make, but the fun is not over yet.

Thanks for looking!

Puppet Clothing- Mail Man Continued

Today, I'm going to carry on from where I left off last time by describing the process of making the Mail Man's Uniform. This will include the construction of his shirt and tie, all the way up to the finishing details such as pockets and buttons.
You can find part one HERE.

Now where were we?

White Shirt
I decided not to make a whole shirt for the Mail Man since only parts of it are visable from under his jacket. Instead, I made the shirt in sections at the cuffs and collar area, creating the illusion of a full white shirt. This made the construction much easier and also stopped the puppet from becoming overly padded around the arms and torso, from too many layers of fabric.

Using a paper template as a guide, I cut four pieces of white cotton fabric to make up the collar area. Two on the back and two on the front to curve around the neck and shoulders. Any visible edges were glued back on themselves with contact adhesive to stop the fabric from fraying. I also added a tube of card into space where the silicone neck slots into the body, to give the collar area some support.

The shirt fabric was glued straight onto the puppet padding using contact adhesive. The next step was to make the shirt collar. For this I needed the puppets silicone neck in place to make sure the collor fits tightly, yet still allows the ability to remove the neck if nessisary.

The shape of the collar was first roughed out in paper and then transferred to fabric. To the top left of the image above is a picture of my first attempt using just fabric. I found that the contact adhesive used to glue the edges left a yellowish stain through the fabric and the collar didn't hold it's shape very well. For collar mark II (to the upper right) the edges of the fabric were glued to a piece of white card which was folded inside the collar, stopping any yellow stains from showing through and giving the collar strength.

Red Tie
To make the tie I used a wide piece of red silk ribbon folded and glued around a paper template.

In a similar way to the card in the shirt collar, The paper helped to stiffen the ribbon and stop the glue from staining. The top of the ribbon was folded into an 'M' shape and pinched together to create the small fold under the knot. A small  strip of ribbon was then folded over a triangle of white sponge to create the knot.

The sponge helped to give the knot some shape and stopped the ribbon from looking too flat and fake. The tie was then glued onto the white shirt using contact adhesive. The two scruffy edges either side of the knot were glued down and covered by the shirt collar.

To finish the shirt, the edges of the white fabric were trimmed around the shoulder to make it easier for the arms to slot into place. The image below shows the K&S brass tubing which allows the arms to be removed from the puppet along with the jacket.

Once on the puppet, the fabric panel on the back of the Mail Man's jacket felt a bit loose and moved every time I touched the shoulders. To stop this I glued a sheet of paper inside the back panel of the jacket which helped to stiffen the fabric.

Now that the shirt and tie were finished, the remaining edges of the jacket were trimmed and glued into place on top of the trousers.

The jacket collar was then created  using a similar method as the shirt collar except there was no need for any card since the jacket fabric is much thicker. The Mail Man's uniform is now mostly complete, but to finish things off a few more details are needs.

Finishing Touches
My Mail Man's uniform design includes a number of small buttoned pockets along the front of the jacket. I made all the pockets for both Mail Man puppets at the same time to try and keep the dimensions of each pocket as close as possible.

Each pocket was made up of a blue fabric square with a triangular fabric shape folded over the top edge of each square. All edges were glued with contact adhesive and attatched to the uniform.

 Buttons
Each Mail Man puppet needed two largeer buttons for the front of the jacket, four small buttons for each pocket and two more medium buttons for each cuff.

Each button was sculpted by hand using Super Sculpey Firm. Pictured above are some of the tools I found useful while making the buttons, including a sanded down cocktail stick (or toothpick) for pushing the indents into each button. And two pins (one missing it's point) for making the small holes.

Each button was then painted with a metalic painted for a brass effect. I used a strip of tape to keep each buton in place while painting. once dry, I coated the buttons with Araldite (clear two part epoxy) giving them a glossy shine. This also created a strong potctive glaze to stop the paint from scratching off. The buttons were attatched to sticks for this to stop the epoxy from pooling around each button.

The buttons were then attatched to the uniform with contact adhesive.

Finnished Uniform
Here are a few pictures of the two Mail Man puppets with finished clothing. Note-the hands are only temporary.

So far I'm pleaesed with the way our film's puppets are turning out. It's nice to finally see some of our cast members. You can see how Nathan is doing with our Actress character 'Elle', along with a look at some of our filming setup, HERE.

This post has been a bit longer than usual. I think here is a good place to stop.

Thanks for looking.

Puppet Clothing- Mail Man

In this post I'm going to be talking about making the uniform for my Mail Man character. The two Mail Man puppets my brother and I will be using to film have already been bulked out and padded with foam (Which you can see HERE) so now it's time to start making some clothes.

Although this character is slender, the clothes I make will still need to be quite tight fitting. This is because I've padded the puppet in such a way that any baggy areas of clothing are actually filled with sponge. This tight fit over sponge should maintain the baggy look from my design, but also reduce the amount of 'boiling' or unwanted movement from the clothes when animating.

Templates
To get a tight fit on my character's clothing I decided to make paper templates of each section of the Mail Man's uniform. To help work out how different items of clothing are pieced together I would recommend searching online, many different templates for a wide range of clothing can be found for free around the Internet. Using templates for this character's clothing is especially important since I will be making this uniform twice and I want each puppet's clothes to look identical.
Using some paper and a pen, I made templates straight from my padded out puppet, curving the paper around the forms of the puppet and drawing markers for the measurements. I then cut out each shape to test if they still fitted, remembering to label everything.

To the left, on the picture above, are the original paper templates for the Mail Man's jacket. Note that the same template was used for each sleeve. To the right are a copy of the templates with approximately 10mm extra space added around the circumference for the seams. It was this set of templates that were pinned to the fabric to draw the out the shapes using chalk.

Fabric

Here is a picture of the fabrics I collected to make the Mail Man's uniform. I tried hard to find materials that replicated the look of the fabrics in my final design, and yet were still suitable for my puppet.
I had to keep in mind that although the colour and appearance of some fabrics may look right, at the 1/6th scale of the puppet, the size of the weave could look huge, destroying the illusion of this miniature world. In some cases this 'chunkification' might work, But I wanted the fabric to not cause any distraction from the look or scale of my film.
I also didn't wanted fabric that is too thick since it is harder to sew at such a small scale and can restrict the puppets movement.
I am very pleased with the fabric I've found. There are two types of blue, one for the trousers and a slightly darker one for the jacket (This helps to add variation, texture and interest to the uniform) some white cotton for the shirt and red ribbon for some trimming and his tie.

To help my puppet stand while his clothes were fitted, the armatures for his feet were returned along with some new silicone shoes. Pictured above are the shoes fresh from the mould ready to be trimmed. You can find out more about the moulding process for these shoes HERE.

Here is a shot of a test fitting for both pairs of trousers. Like any type of clothing, the patterns were sewn together using a sewing machine and then turned inside out for a clean seam. The trousers were left longer at the waist and foot to allow for adjustments. The length of the trousers were shortened once on the puppet.

To make things easier, I decided to glue the hem of the trousers using contact adhesive as opposed to stitching at such a small scale. The long fabric was trimmed and folded back inside the leg.

To the left, on the picture above, are the Mail Man's Jacket and trousers straight from the sewing machine. On the image to the right, The jacket arms have been shortened to the correct position of the characters wrist and cuffs have been added. In a similar way to the hem of the trousers, the cuffs required no extra sewing to create.

To make the cuffs I started by trimming the overly long jacket arms to about 5mm too short of where they should be at the wrists. Their edges were then glued back on themselves to stop the fabric from fraying. The idea is to add the cuff section using new strips of fabric to make up the arm length. The new cuff section should hide the original shortened arm fabric and appear to be part of the same sleeve folded back on it's self  creating a cuff.

For my cuffs I used strips of the same blue fabric used for the jacket , cut to match the measurement of the wrist. all the edges were folded back on themselves and glued with contact adhesive to stop the fabric from fraying. I also added some red trim to my cuffs by gluing thin ribbon folded along one edge (pictured above). The sewn edges of the ribbon even look as though it has been stitched to the fabric.

The final stage in creating the cuffs was to add a small loop of white cotton fabric, glued inside the jacket cuff to suggest a white shirt underneath.

In the next part I'll talk about the fabrication of the rest of the white shirt, as well as the collars, red tie and finishing touches such as the jacket pockets.

Thanks for looking.

Puppet Head Sculpt- Mail Man Part III

It's time to continue talking about the head sculpting process. To catch up you can find part one HERE and part two HERE.
You can also see how the 'Actress' character's head sculpt is coming along on my brothers blog HERE.

So far I have sculpted and moulded the Mail Man character's head pieces and cast out a number of copies. Here is a picture of all the pieces so far including the two main head components (one for each Mail Man puppet) and a selection of replacement 'mask' parts for the brow and mouth.

At the moment all of the replaceable brow and mouth  pieces are identical and need to be individually changed to give each mask a different expression. However, before I do that, the face pieces need to be able to be easily attached and removed from the main head component. It's important that the mask pieces lock-on to the head so that they stay fixed in place and don't move or fall off the puppet while filming.

An Attractive Face
My brother and I have decided to use magnets to attach the face pieces to the head. Another option would have been to keep the faces in place using tacky wax, but we felt that magnets are cleaner and would hold the faces more securely. Not to mention...magnets are cool.

For my puppet's head I used very small Neodymium magnets. This is a very power full type of magnet that comes in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Not every piece will need a magnet, they will only be used in the puppets main head component. Each replaceable mask piece will then be given a small amount of steel to attract to the magnets. For this I decided to use small steel tacks.

Using a rotary tool I drilled two holes into the puppet's head for the magnets to be set into. One for the brow and another for the mouth pieces. The hole for the mouth pieces happened to go straight through to the hollow area where the neck piece slots into the head, However the magnet is thin enough to not effect the neck when the parts are slotted together. The magnets where then secured in place using a two part epoxy glue.

With the magnets in place the next stage was to add the steel tacks to the replaceable face pieces. I had to be sure the positioning of the tacks in the faces would line up to the magnets in the head. To do this I put a small amount of Blu Tack (you could use plasticine or anything similar) onto the magnets and drew a small dot in the center using a black pen. I then pushed each replacement part onto the head and the Blu Tack, leaving a print of the black ink dot on each piece. I could then drill a hole using the black dot as a guide, knowing the parts would line up correctly.

The steel tacks were shortened using a pair of pliers, leaving the head of the tack to attract the magnet. Pictured below are the drilled face parts ready for the head of the steel tack to be set inside using two part epoxy glue. Only a small amount of the steel tack was needed to hold the face pieces to the magnet meaning the holes didn't need to be too deep, avoiding the risk of drilling straight through the mask piece.

Below is a picture of the two Mail Man heads with magnets installed and an example of the now magnetic faces. The positioning of the magnets on each head are identical meaning the face pieces will attract to each head just as well as the other. The face pieces now attach securely to the heads with a satisfying 'click'.

Adding Expression
Now that the face pieces are attaching to the head nicely, It's time to give my character a wider range of expressions. The strange grin he has at the moment is starting to creep me out.

Above is a picture of some of the materials and tools I use to sculpt with. Over the years I've collected a large number of tools to use but I seem to use these the most. The needle to the right is my favorite. It's much larger and chunky than a regular needle and has a nice rounded tip. My brother uses a playing dart without it's flight as a similar tool. I also use a flat plastic tool for roughing out shapes and a pin with a white Milliput handle for fine details.
The clay I will be using to sculpt the characters expressions is Super Sculpey Firm. It's easy to work with and can be baked in a conventional home oven. I also use Liquid Sculpey, this will help the Super Sculpey firm stick to the fast cast face pieces.

Above is a small selection of the replaceable mouths sculpted for the Mail Man. These mouths were created simply by sculpting lips over the existing mouth pieces using my character expression sheet for reference. The upper row of teeth were included as part of the cast piece because they stay locked in place as we speak. The lower row of teeth are sculpted and the jaw line added to in order to simulate a hinged jaw.

These faces are only rough out at the moment and need more work before they are cleaned up. The brows also need to be sculpted to give the character a neutral and angry expression.

At the moment he looks like he has a Homer Simpson-esque  9 o'clock shadow. This will obviously disappear once the character is painted. The next step is to make sure the faces work on camera and then make any corrections that are needed. Next time I'll be able to show the finished sculpted faces and talk about the painting/ finishing process. Until next time...