It's My First Time - Be Gentle

So I'm new to the blogging world and things will probably go quite wrong for me in regards to maintaining this with any sense. But there's a first time for everything and hopefully once i acclimatise, things will go sweetly i'm sure. Well, Stop motion is the basis of this journal and in particular my experiences with it as not just a hobby (and obsession) but hopefully one day a full blown career. Below are images of my first dive into puppet fabrication. I've thrown aside scripting, voice tracks, storyboarding and animatics, and just gone straight in for some hands on puppet making. This is probably one of the areas everyone loves, the puppets, for they are the vessels through which you convey your story. Plus, they're immensely enjoyable to fashion from start to finish. I made up my rough character design (not particularly captivating) and laid out the plan for my armature... all very important stuff. I then collected together the following materials:

- 2mm Aluminum wire

- 7/32", 3/16" and 5/32" square brass K&S tube

- 1/8 round brass K&S tube

- Brass nuts

- Brass bolts (cut to appropriate length)

- Solder

- 5 minute epoxy glue

Once assembled (and after much faffing) those materials became what you can see in the images below.

The first 3 pictures show the K&S plug-ins on the wrists, ankles and the join to the neck. I used some brass nuts and bolts (which I cut down to size) which I fortunately found lying around in my shed... I do like to recycle. However, I do not know what size they are (at a guess M2). Although this isn't a huge problem I went online and purchased some brass M3 nuts so I can use them for the foot tie-downs and on future armatures. I also took the opportunity to buy some grub screws (because these bolts stick out far to much and I predict will become problematic) and some M3 studding and wing nuts to use for the tie downs.

The feet were the hardest part to get right. I first tried holding the foot plates and wire together with epoxy putty... unfortunately I braided the wire and this meant the feet were too stiff. I also found them too big and not particularly attractive so i went back to the drawing board. In my search for a solution, I took a close look at the designs from Susannah Shaw's Craft Skills For Model Animation which I stress is an essential guide for the beginner such as myself. The solution was as follows, in order to attach the aluminium wire to the foot plates I soldered round brass tubing to the heel and toe plates. I then glued the aluminium wire into these creating a flexible join between the two plates. Shaw's puppet design does not have tie down nuts, instead she would, at an educated guess and from what can be seen from the photos, use steel plates for the feet and rare earth magnets as tie downs. I have manipulated the design for my own requirements and added nuts to the toe plates for tie downs.

So there you have it - my first attempt at an armature. There's a lot to be said on the craft of puppet fabrication and the armature is one of those things you need to get right if you want an easily animatable puppet. All said, I'm content with this result and have learnt a lot. Before this I had never brazed, but with blowtorch in hand and some old leaded solder (yeah I may have inhaled more than what's good for you) I got on fine... Well as evident in the above images, I could use some more practise. Puppet Animation is a summation of many crafts and skills and just buckling down and getting your hands dirty is the way to learn them and get good at them. I took a long while researching designs and methods to make my experience easier, and for a while I did get too caught up in the nitty gritty of ball and socket armatures and every other armature machining method under the sun. But I finally gritted my teeth and threw myself on in, I went for the simple, cheap, yet effective route and now I've started there's no stopping me.

Next I shall glue upholstery foam onto the body (yup this is a foam build up puppet). It required a good hunt around town for some suitable contact adhesive but now that I have it I shall get to work. The upholstery foam is some old stuff that has been knocking around the house... more recycling. I will update soon with the results.