Puppet Making: handicraft

I was first trying to sculpt/mold the hands around the armature, but I always ended up with a shape too plump for bare-bone hands. I have changed strategy by using the insulating plastic of electric wires. It's a bit gross but that will do.

GF's Rosetta Stone

I have the good fortune of spending a good part of my life in Cambodia. Khmer culture is reknown for its monuments, and in particular for the amazing stone bas-reliefs that ornate its countless  angkorian (and pre-angkorian) temples.

The mastery of stone carving has survived, and skilled artists are still sculpting elegant Budhas and generously breasted Apsaras.

You may recall Grim Fandango's famous "mural" that was gradually lighten up as the player progressed through the story. This mural, originally designed by Peter Chan, was imitating a stone carving containing  clues and pointers of the world and unfolding story of GF. It's an absolutely amazing piece of art. According to Tim Schafer :  

After Peter Chan created it, he dutifully handed the original over to LucasArts Marketing, where it probably got shoved into a closet and forgotten about. I’ve tried to get my hands on the original for years, but I think it’s just gone.  It might have even been thrown out when they moved to the Presidio. :( 

 (source: Double Fine(tm) forum here)

Sometime ago, a couple GF fan, elbiolin (LucasForum) and Laserschwert, laboriously managed to "restore" a high resolution rendering of this artwork from some pixelized screenshots...

Laseshewert's "restoration" of Peter Chan's mythical "mural" (CG, click for details!)

I downloaded his high res file, printed a poster, and went in a little carving shop located in a small street of Phnom Penh. When I unrolled my poster, I could tell on the face of the shop owner that this was the most unusual commission that he had ever received. He looked at me, puzzled, wondering what could possibly be my religion. Of course, a cultural chasm (not to mention the language barrier) did not help to explain the nature of my condition.

He asked for three months, but called me back after only four weeks. While on my way, I got myself prepared for a big disappointment. He could not have possibly completed this piece in just a month. I was not even sure that carving this piece was actually possible. There are so many layers of depth, so much details... this was plain silly!

I arrived at the shop, and Mr Choum Sophek was waiting for me. A plate of sandstone at its feet measuring 110cm large, 38cm high. With the help of two of its staff he turned the stone over to reveal its sculpted side and I went... speechless.

Mr Choum Sophek (& co) actual carving (sandstone, click for details!)

I am now the proud owner of this improbable artifact:
First conceived and drawn by Peter Chan somewhere San Francisco, lost in some bottomless IP vault at LucasArts, laboriously restored in its original splendor as a computer graphic by GF fans, and finally, 15 years later, carved into a 40kg piece of sandstone in Cambodia by the descendents of the Angkor Wat builders. What a fantastic journey! Peter Chan's masterpiece has finally reached its own Ninth Underworld... in my living room!

Oh by the way, I intend to use this carving for the Opening of the movie (panning through the details in extreme close-up, in stop-mo, but under natural light in order to get some natural flickers as a special "intemporal" effect)

Set building: More props

Door... almost done... just need to write "Manual Calavera" in reverse across the window

 Books... painted

 

Mexican band... work in progress (by the way this prop is not at 1/7th, too small, and just need for a close-up, so this prop is made at 1/1 scale...)

Puppet making: Shoe shine

So... one of the first scene I will have to shoot is a close-up on Celso's shoes...

... and I thought I did a pretty good job with my first ever shoes sculpting attempt...

... until I got on Joshua Flynn's blog and saw this...

How humiliating... and stimulating... So I went back to my clay and managed to get to this...

By the way, the fact that I am sculpting shoes separately from the rest of the body hints that I am changing strategy... looking at Flynn's brothers amazing puppets (discovered thanks to a nice comment posted by Dead End), I really think I am going to give up with latex foam and try to do the puppet in fabrics instead... The above shoes would be used for making a hard mold and a RV silicon cast. looks easier than the foam latex way.

Set Building: for a fistful of props

I had still quite a few items on my prop list which needed to be addressed, somehow... and if possible cheap and fast.

For example, this pile of official DOD self-help books to unleash your inner salesmanship potential

How about that (rigged) vacuum tube messaging system,

I also need shoes for this close-up on Celso's shoe taping nervously as the "reaper" walks in...

And how about this annoying Mexican band press-paper... (err, one musician done, 3 to go)

All these props were made using Super Sculpey Firm, then baked. It's a reasonably cheap way to get done with smaller prop, rather than modelling in 3D and 3D printing.

I still need to model a couple of lamps, a couple of ashtrays, finish the mexican-band press paper, find a way to make a (partial) roof, create the city landscape behind the windows, build the door... and... I know... I really should get on with painting one of these days...

MoldMaking: Crash test dummie

So, given my less than perfect attempt at scultping Manny's body, I am now completely relaxed in pursuing the whole process, calling it a "dry run", and carrying on making all possible mistakes along the way.

This week-end was about creating a plaster mold out of the "frankein-sculpt" I ended up doing. The hobby community seems to have settled on "Ultracal" as being the ultimate plaster for mold-making, but I had to settle to a locally available, fast setting, gypsum-plaster.

The pro's are also using a so-called "Wed-clay" in the process  (see tutorial here from stopmotionmagazine), but here again, I had to settle for some locally available natural water based clay.

Well, in the ambient 35 degree Celsius where I am living, both the clay and the plaster seemed to be drying faster than I wanted. The natural clay was rather messy to deal with, and I had trouble to level it to the divide line of my puppet. As a result I created a lot of undesirable undercuts : whereby the puppet ended up being sunken a little to much in one of the half mold, making it impossible to release without breaking.

Oh, and I also forgot to create "keys" (holes on one side, bumps on the other) to facilitate the placement of the two halves. The plaster turn out to be very soft... and I don't think this mold will resist more than one foam-latex baking.

Well, the result is very amateurish but I think it should be good enough to mess with the foam latex curing part... which seems to be the hardest craft to master in this type puppet making. I will most likely end up with a shapeless blob but I am picking up some ideas to do better on the second try :

1 - Will sculpt the master shape in Supersculpey, instead of air drying clay, then bake it to harden, and will send the shape to pistol lacquer painting (at a motorcycle repair shop), to get the smoothest surface possible

2 - Will use Kid grade synthetic clay (comes almost cheaper than natural one where I leave) in the mold making process, instead of trying with natural clay. I will just warm it a little in a rice cooker to make it very soft. Kid clay worked very well when I made silicon molding for the corners (see earlier post). It will be more forgiving for puppet molding as well... just need lots of it.

3 - I need to settle for a plaster than does not dry so quickly... and maybe ask the plaster shop if there is a way to mix it with more gypsum powder to improve its hardness.

Set Making: Manny's computer in the matter.

Here is another prop 3D-printed from a Google Sketchup rendition.
This is where 3D printing shine... those intricate little keys of the keyboard would have been almost very hard to render using any other modelling technique. If only 3D printing wasn't so expensive... this nice little prop did cost about 40 euros...

The 3D-print price are going down, but I guess that clay and talented traditional sculptors have still a bright future for their craft.