Sunday 6 November 2011

Puppet Making: Manny's stand up

Intimidating? Me?
As promised, Manny's skull has found its skeleton. The armature has been purchased in Kit from Animation Supplies from the UK. Andy, the e-shop owner, has been very responsive in the purchasing process and the quality of the kit, its instructions, and the comprehensiveness of the package (down to the Threadlock glue, and the epoxy glue to be used, and tools) left little to look for to build the armature in a few hours.
Of course, I did all the mistakes, like cutting the rods a tad short, but this amazing Threadlock glue allowed me to make up for the shortfall in lengh by not screwing the threaded rods to the end of the balls and sockets... the Threadlock glue keeping eventually everything tight in place.
Yet, after a few manipulation, I realized why some animator prefer good old plain wire armature : beside the fact that it's a cheaper option, it has also the advantage of not loosening after a few manipulations. I have the feeling that I will have to re-tighten now and then the pressure plates to keep the right level of tention at the articulation, which might be problematic when the whole armature get casted in a thick layer of foam latex. I will have probably to find a way to leave access points, which promise to be an interesting extra difficulty for the casting of the puppet.

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