the making of the puppets

8/3/2019 The Making of the Puppets

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Walter

We Are two university students, studying BA Model

Making at the Arts University college of

Bournemouth www.bmakers.co.uk

Once we had our first meeting, and had decided on the process and materials, we started sculpting

ourcharacter. Walter was to have separate hands and legs, to allow for replacements, and a separate

solid head as a base for moving eyes and multiple mouths. These images are all rough initial sculpts

that were sent to the team to check anything that might need touching up.

Madge

For Madge, the sculpt and designs were being constantly tweaked and updated, thefirstbody sculpts had much bagger clothing, which were later changed to tighter

clothes. The armature included two sets of feet and hands so they had to sculpted

separately, I sculpted the hands with milliput and the first set of shoes which wax.


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These are the finished sculpts ready to mould. We smoothed them with lighter fluid

andbaby powder to give a good finish.

Once we had a closer look at the armature, we realised they wouldnt allow the feet to be

changed easily. For Walter this wasnt too much of an issue so I attached the feet to be moulded

as one,but Madge needed a change of shoes so we had to still do these separately, and think of

a way to make this still work.

To ensure the eyes fitted within

the cast, we put the same shape

eye in to the sculpt beforemould- ing. This meant that the

eyes would move within the

head.


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To make the mould we layered clay to create a bed to lay the sculpt on to, and then built up a wall

halfway up the sculpt. This had to be at exactly 90 degrees to ensure no seam line in the cast. Oncewe hadbuilt the wall, and added in the keys, we mixed up the herculite plaster to pour in. We did

this bitbybit, and never poured straight on to the sculpt to prevent any distortion. This is really

important to get

right, as if the sculpt gets damaged before the mould is made, there is no way to save it and would

mean starting from scratch.

The plaster took about an hour to harden(not dry), so we could

then remove the first half and start on the next half. We removed

the clay and cleaned down the plaster without getting it too wet.

We coated the first half in Vaseline as plaster sticks to plaster.

We repeated the herculite process, to build up the second half.

Once this has hardened we removed the sculpt, cleaned both

halves, andput the two halves together so that if they shrank they

would still lock together. The plaster takes a long time to dry so

we put them in to the oven.


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Although the plaster was not completely bone dry, we had to work quickly, and decided with the

team to go ahead with the foam latex. We knew that foam latex reacts with water, but sometimes

doing an initial cast draws all the remaining water from the mould. We added bleeders to the

mould,prepared the moulds with the release agent, then wrapped the armature with ptfe tape to

prevent the metal reacting with the foam latex. We were ready to mix the foam latex! This was

very precise and needed a lot of concentration. As we had decided to pour in to the separate

halves and place these together, rather than pour in to the mould, we had to work quickly togetherto pour the mix in, then place the armature in the right place, and seal the mould.

Foam latex does not

like water!!!!This was the first attempt for

Walter. The moulds weredefinitely not dry enough

and this was the result after

a day in the oven. Each

time the cast went wrong,

we had to remove the foam

latex,

re apply the tape, re apply

release agent, and re mix

foam latex. We later

learned that in industry theywill do a dummy cast

without the armature to save

time.

The first attempt with Madge, didnt

work properly either, as some of the

armature was visible through the foam

latex and the foam latex hadnt set cor-

rectly so it had finger marks from

where it had been handled which could

be clearly seen. Unfortunately, the

mould had been too wet and when

prizing it apart the mould cracked and

broke, so it had to be glued back

together and filled in.


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The broken mould. It was glued together

and filled in and luckily on the next

attempt the foam latex worked (below)

Foam latex STILL does not like water!!

We had let the moulds dry in the oven, but

the second attempt for Walter still did not

work.

These are the final casts. We had to trim

off the excess foam latex with nail

scissors.


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After trimming the seams down, we then soldered

the edges to remove the excess latex and then dusted

with baby powder to prevent it from becoming

sticky.

As Madge had detachable legs, they had to be fit-

ted into the armature, when casting the mould with

foam latex, some thin brass tubing had been put

into the legs to make the armature more easily

accessible. Then a hole had to be made with the

soldering iron to access the joint to allow it bescrewed in with an allen key, and then the hole was

covered bypainting over latex mixed with latex

thickener.


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We poured the silicone to create a block mould for the heads and hands, then cut them open,removed the sculpts and created a pour hole and bleeder. The heads were made from fast cast, and

below are the first casts.They needed to have a blank space to

allow for removeable mouths, so we used a

drem- mel to remove this from the cast and

create a master. We could then sculpt each

mouth

within this space to ensure they would all

fit. We used super sculpey which hardenedinplace, then we baked it in the oven.

Once we had decided on a colour and size for the eyes, we had

to sand the back off, fill with car body filler, and glue together

eachpiece. They had to be completely rounded so that theywould move freely within the head.


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To encase the eyes within the head, they had to sit in place in the mould

before pouring the fast cast. This meant coating the eyes with Vaseline

and delicately place them into the mould without them moving.

These attempts show that fast cast does not like Vaseline! We needed

enough to allow the eyes to move, but this made them look disfigured,

butby applying less meant they were fixed in the head. Also, everytime

we had to cast a head, we had to prepare they eyes which was time

consuming.To make the eyes able to be animated,we had to drill pin sized holes in the

pupil. This could then be moved a

fraction with a pin for each frame.

Weput ink in to where we had drilled

to make it unnoticable.


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For the eyes, we needed a solution, asthe vasaline was definitely not work-

ing. It was time consuming and a

waste of materials. Luckily, our course

mate, Tom Anderson, was there to save

the day. He suggested sawing a good

look- ing cast that already had the eyes,

re-placing them with fresh eyes, and

then filling the gap. This meant the

face would look good but would still

have eyes that moved. It workedperfectly and meant we could then

move on to the next stage. Thanks

Tom!!

We attempted putting hot glue in to the silicone

moulds for the hands while he armature was in

them, but it didnt fill in to all of the fingers, andonce it had set there wasnt much movement in

the fingers.


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So we used the silicone moulds to make fast cast hands, to then make plaster moulds from.

We used the same process as the bodies. This meant we could make latex hands which would

be a lot more flexible allowing the animation to be a lot more realistic. We made each hand

using all thebolts provided, filed the wrist in to a cube so that it would fit, and the fingers from

wire.

We then painted latex

and latex thickener in to

each half. This meant

that the hand would

have a strong skin forthe latex to sit in. We

wrapped the armature in

tape, placed them in to

tubing so that when they

were cast they would

have a hole for the arm

to sit in. Then weput

them in the mould, then

poured the latex in to a

hole.This shows the moulds

with the latex and arma-

ture in, sat drying, and

the below shows

Madges latex hand

being trimmed.


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We began painting the puppets with a 50/50 mix oflatex and acrylic paint which would

stick to the foam latex. We began by dabbing the paint on with a sponge,beginning

with a white coat and then sponged on colour. We then painted on the finer details

with a paint brush.


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We then repeated the process for the head and

hands.


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This was our first ever time working with a client, so was difficult working out a realistic time frame.

Foam latex is extremely temperamental so there is no way of predicting when it will work, and the time

frame didnt allow the precision that we would have preferred. However, we have learnt so much that next

time it would allow us to prevent mistakes that we made this time. It was a higher level of work than we

were prepared for, but this meant that we have benefitted by proving what we are capable of, to our tutors,

and to ourselves. We are extremely proud of what we achieved in the time given, and without the guidance

that may havebeen expected. We were glad to have shared the experience with each other.Charlie: I found this project exciting, rewarding, and at times over whelming. Although it was a far

bigger project than we initially thought, and sometimes very stressful, I dont regret taking it on at all. I

have learnt how to use new materials, how to work under pressure, and how hard it is to meet a clients

standard. This has definitely prepared me for industry and am very happy to have completed theproject.Sophie: This project has been invaluable in helping me to understand new methods and materials, the

knowl- edge I have gained from this has prepared me for the future, including encouraging me to work in

industry confidently. It was very rewarding and Im very happy to have been a part of it, even though it was

very stressful, hard and demanding. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and what I gained was

worth the tears!!!

We are very grateful and honoured to have been a part of this production.We would like to thank Phil Andrews, Tom Anderson and Faith Wong for their invaluable help.

WHAT A MESS!!!! :)


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the making of the puppets

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