Creating a Puppet – Part 3

To make the muscle I simply cut out and glued mattress foam over the armature.

I then trimmed it down with scissors to make it look more like muscle.

Now it’s time for some color.

Creating a Puppet – Part 2

To make the hands, I first took 24 gauge steel wire and twisted up 8 strands individually. Then I took those strands to twist them into hand-shapes.

I then took epoxy putty to create a palm, and the spots between the joints. I then took liquid latex to create the skin.

I then attached the hands to the armature with an aluminum tube that will become the forearm and glued with 5-minute epoxy. Unfortunately the tube I had on hand is one size too big, but it’ll have to do.

The ‘dipping’ method is quite haphazard and does not allow for much in the way of sculpting a nice looking hand. The next time I create hands I am going to attempt to make a two-part mold from a hand sculpted with modeling clay over the same type of armature. I will then try to use liquid latex to fill that mold. I am not entirely positive that will work, but it is worth a try. There is a wonderful 3-part video tutorial on mold making I will use as a guide.

I am still working on the ‘muscle.’

Creating a Puppet – Part 1

The other day I decided to practice going through the stages of creating a puppet so that I may use him for practice animations.

I started out with a some 8 gauge annealed aluminum wire (about a foot in length) and made a hook.

I then took some aluminum foil and made a shape of a head out of it.

I then took some sculpey to sculpt out a head. I am not a good sculptor, so I used this video tutorial.

To make the feet, I took two other pieces of aluminum wire (a little less than 2 feet) and wrapped one end of each around a hex nut that was glued with epoxy.

I then took some epoxy putty to further secure the nut in place (screwing in the nut so that I don’t clog the whole). Afterward I used sculpey to create some shoes.

I then pieced the 3 strands together using epoxy putty.

This is the 4th puppet I have created in this manner, each with slight improvements. One area I need to work on for the next one is the ability to move the head side to side. I could possibly use aluminum tube to connect the neck. I should also put epoxy putty around the hook in the head.

I am still working on the hands and will post that as soon as I’m done. The next step after that is to create the ‘muscle,’ give him some color and clothes.