Casting Hands

Casting the hands in silicone has been a problem. The silicone has been harder to work with than I thought it would and it has taken a few attempts to to get some usable hands.

 To start with I mixed acrylic paint to get as close to the colour of my skin paint as possible. I mixed this into the silicone and attempted to add 5% catalyst to the silicone so that it would set.

 I then put my hand armatures into the moulds and spread in some of the silicone.

 I put some on top of a spare mould to make a flat so that I could wrap it up to make a neck.

 I clamped the moulds together so that they would set.

 Some of my attempts failed because I did not put enough catalyst into the mixture or I did not put enough mixture into the mould.

 Here are one set of hands for The Man that are ok and I will use as spares.

 Here are one set of hands for The Mechanic that I am happy enough with.

 Here are the final hands that I have made. I hope they hope up as I animate with them as I do not know if I have time to make any more.

 My mould for The Man's hands crack so badly I am unsure if they will work again.

But I am very happy with the neck I made with the flat of silicone.

I only have to make the clothes for the puppet now, but we will be getting extra advice for them so I they wll be better. Now I will continue with building my sets.

Making a Little Universe

As I am not God I can not make a universe with mere words. So I had to be creative.

I started by buying a mini globe and painting it...

I painted the earth roughly the same colour of green as the towel I will use for my surface set.

I then painted the blue water on and experimented with more wire wool spray painted white to look life clouds and atmosphere. I stuck them on with tacky wax so that I can move them slightly when I animate the world turning. 

 I put some Tacky Wax at the joins of the globe so that it moves slower which will make it easier to animate.

To make the stars I punched holes in a black sheet of card. I then propped it up with translucent plastic.

  I then shown a light through the back of the card so that only the light from the holes show through.I hope to mask out the globe bracket and base in After Effects.

Finishing Touches and Hair

My heads look very bald and boring at the moment, so I had to finish them off...

I started by painting pupils in the eyes.

I then sculpted eyelids for expressions and blinking.

To make the hair. I first roughly sculpted the wire wool into shape. I then spray painted it and let it dry.

I then stuck them on with epoxy glue and used super glue for the edges to get and neat fit.

I then made eyebrows from some of the sprayed wire wool and sculpted eyelids onto the face with Plasticine, which will made them easily sculpted while animating.

However I decided that for The Man and The Girlfriend that the Plasticine needed to be a bit darker. 

I think the darker Neoplastic works better, so I will have to re-sculpt some eyelids for them.

I now just have to make clothes for my puppets. I have casted the shoes for the man from Latex and I am currently trying to cast hands for The Man and The Mechanic from Silicone. It has gone wrong twice now and I hope my current attempt will work.

I also hope to start work on my sets. I have already started by making the globe and finding materials for grass and sky.

Painting Heads and Mouths

I then painted the heads and mouths to give them a skin colour and detail. I decided to spray paint my heads and mouths as it will gave me an even uniform colour to work from.

I first gave the heads and mouths an undercoat of white so that the skin colour would come out well.

I then used a skin colour on the heads.

I thought blocking up the mouths with plasticine (like I did the eyes) would prevent me from having to re-paint the teeth. (However this proved fruitless and I had to re-paint them anyway)

I tried various ways to give The Man's mouths stubble. I thought sticking up bits of painted wire wool would work but it looked to hairy and random.

So I used wire wool to 'dab on' the spray paint to give a stubble effect on the face.

However I felt it was too much and ended up dabing on more skin colour to lessen the colour of the stubble. I then painted the detail of the gums, teeth and lips.

Sculpting Mouths

Next I had to make sculpts for each of the expressions that The Man and The Girlfriend will make in my film.

I referenced back to my expression sheets that I made in pre-production...

I worked out how few mouths I could get away with to limit the amount I had to sculpt.

I again used Super Sculpey to make these and once I had baked them I sanded them down and used Miliput to fill in any holes or cracks.

Now the mouths fit into the space made for them so that there will only we a small seam between the mouth and face.

Sculpting Heads

Here are what my puppets look like so far...

Now I have to sculpt their heads. I first made a balsa wood core so that they would be light enough for the armature to support. I then covered the core in tin foil so that the modelling material Super Sculpey would stick to them well.

I began sculpting by getting a good shape for the head and then working in detail and features.

Here is what they looked like before I cut out the areas for the replaceable mouths.

I cut out the areas in The Man's and The Girlfriend's face where their replaceable mouths would go. I then baked them in the oven. This is quite a risky way of making heads as I will only have one copy of each head but it is quick and practical.