Making a puppet (Grandma)
Preparing for the workshop
Following my research and sketchbook work, I am preparing to create a puppet to be used for animation.
Here's my first sketchbook page specifically considering the different parts I will need for making a puppet of Grandma.
These pencil sketches were to be used as an actual scale reference when forming my wire skeleton. I have exaggerated the proportions slightly with shorter legs than normal anatomy. I'm going more for whimsy than exact uncanny realism.
Ahead of sculpting in the puppet workshop, I have compiled a montage of photos of Grandma from all angles. My previous experience with sculpture has always benefited from referencing as many angles of the subject as possible.
Puppet workshop
It's time to really get going on the puppet project. We were given an active workshop to ​show us how to create stable models with flexibility for animation where needed. Although I have made stop-motion short films in the past, this puppet workshop gave me a lot more insight into better techniques for making models.
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We started with the basics of forming a wire skeleton. Aluminium wire made the basis of the main armature. The spine and limbs needed to be strong and self-supporting, so I twisted the thick wire to reinforce the skeleton further. First, the wire for the spine was looped at the top to allow for a tin foil head, around which a clay face could be built.
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Head
Over the years, I have dabbled in making air-drying modelling clay heads so sculpture has become quite familiar to me. The 'Das' clay I'm used to using has the disadvantage of constantly needing to be kept wet and slippery, and drying too quickly with the heat of my hands. This clay, 'Sculpey', allowed for a more controlled sculpting process, only hardening when baked at the end of the day.
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I was apprehensive going into the workshop about sculpting on the spot, under the time constraint of a single session. The trouble with a project as personal as this, involving a loving depiction of a family member, is that I feel a lot of pressure to get the likeness right. In the time available, it's not a bad result.
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I went back and forth on deciding how to do the eyes, sometimes thinking a simple dot would be best, but I tried something more realistic instead. The glasses go a long way to sell the look; I got lucky when a fellow student offered this thin wire that suited the scale perfectly. It's just one piece of wire looped into the right shape- interestingly I think it works without any lenses, fortunately for me as the single wire would withstand baking.
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Body
The base skeleton of wire is reinforced with Milliput, a cement-like putty used for those parts of the puppet I wanted rigid, exposing specific joint areas for flexibility. Once that was set, I needed to flesh out the body with soft foam. As pictured, I sandwiched the skeleton between two thick pieces of foam, tied for gluing.
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Next, sculpting the foam. I wanted a fuller form but that can restrict the movement so I cut into the joints for ease of bending the limbs. Also I added extra foam to the front to complete the body shape, attached a little looser- again not to restrict movement.
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The workshop process has been surprisingly straightforward and I do intend to try this again with a different figure in the future i.e. skinny, non-human, etc. I'm very curious to know how a more exaggerated character could move, since I have gone quite naturalistic here.
Clothing
I wanted to keep the clothing design fairly straightforward, as long as I had the right materials. The main piece, the jumper fabric, is actually made from an old tea towel. The trousers are a stretchy t-shirt fabric, and the scarf is a small piece of a pillow case.
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My hand-sewing skills are pretty basic but thankfully my mum has a lot of sewing experience and she could help me through this part of the process.
The final thing to add is the hands, which I have decided to make with plasticine (polymer clay), like Morph or Wallace & Gromit. I want them to remain malleable for specific actions. The trouble is they pick up fluff and can become distorted quite easily with overuse and need to be replaced or reshaped often.
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Now I have a completed puppet, it's onto testing the animation...
