Sculpted Further

The next thing I had to decide was how to create the skin, I tried using a thin foam but I was unable to find any. The foam I found make her body too thick, considering I was going for a skeleton look. I decided to cut bone features into the foam for me to paint it later.

Hair

It was inevitable that the hair for my puppet was going to be a challenge, what was I going to use? Would it look right in the animation? I had to figure out what I was going to use.

I searched around the city to try and find something what I needed, either I needed to find a material or possibly find a doll which I could use the hair of. I eventually found a Pocahontas doll to which I used a scalpel to take the scalp off. I then placed it on a ready made ball of balsa wood.

With impact glue I was able to stick it on pretty well, I left in a vice over night to make sure it would stay. It worked really well. I then started to model the head.

Sculpting

With a pair of scissors and a scalpel I was able to cut a piece of foam to the correct size, to then cut it in half with body indents either side of my puppet. I placed the armature inside the two bits of foam, with impact glue I stuck them together and started to sculpt with scissors.

Let it Foam

 The next stage in making my puppet is filling it out, I wil be using foam. i was able to pick some up cheaply from the market. The idea is to create the skin texture, the only issue I felt I had was I felt like the foam would look too bulky for my character. But I feel like I can cut it down thin enough. The issue I would have next is the colour.

Fabrics Galore

I knew the hair on my puppet was going to be hard (finding the right material that would look good on camera) so I decided to get a head start and look in fabric shops close by. I found some interesting materials, the closest thing I could find to hair was fur, but I felt like this would not give me the look I was aiming for.

Barry gave me the idea to use thread around a round piece of wire to create the formation of hair, I felt like this would be complicated but it could be worth a try.

Developing my Puppet

The first step in creating my puppet was creating an armature, this was created with thick wire. Her neck is longer to compensate for the hunch in her back. It gives me room to model.

I then used milliput to show where the main forms of the body are, I can then use foam to go over these main part and model accurately.  

Animating Styles

I just found a few examples of way of animating that I felt would suit the ideas I had in mind, I always loved the jaunty stop frame look that old fashioned stop motions used to have. I see a pattern here that all the stop motion I like seems to have a dark overlay.

                                                     The tale of the fox - 1930

                                                            Keane - Bedshaped

Alice - Jan Svankmajer

Creating A Wire Frame

Here is the wire armature made of wire and Milliput, The neck is much longer than intended to incorporate both the neck and back since she will be hunched. Both her legs and arms are very long due to her being such a tall character.

Once equal quantities of each stick has been mixed the resultant putty is at first soft and highly adhesive and then gradually hardens.