Sculpting Max's Dog!

On to sculpting the dog. 

You may have noticed Max has his shoes back on, this is because I was working on the dog sculpt and feet simultaneously.

To know the size of the dog in comparison to Max I printed off a few different sizes of the dog and compared them to Max. 

I went for the 2nd one on the list as I wanted to keep the dog quite small compared to Max.

I then started making a basic armature for the dog.

For the core of the body I used balsa wood and sanded it to shape.

Wire was then pushed in and then glued in to the balsa core. 

The dog does not need to move therefore this armature works perfectly.

PTFE tape was then wrapped around the wire. This was to enable the plasticine to grip on to the legs 

Before applying the plasticine I punched holes in to the balsa with a dart tip. This was to give the plasticine little pockets to grip on to to ensure the plasticine was securely on to the armature.

The reason why I'm using Plasticine is that I wont be animating or handling the dog much therefore there was no need to cast the dog. I decided to use plasticine as well as it's easy to sculpt with and also theres no need to paint the dog afterwards as I can use coloured plasticine. 

Talc was added and mixed in to the plasticine to give it a firmer texture and to take the tackiness away from the plasticine  

I then started adding plasticine to the armature. The wired legs were then cut to length and if you can see the white part on the leg closest to camera is milliput. I added milliput to the leg to look like the bone, I chose milliput rather than white plasticine because if any brown plasticine  got on to the 'bone' I could clean it off easier.

To smooth out the plasticine I used cling film and my finger. Once relatively smooth I then used a baby wipe and lighter fluid to smooth it out more.

To secure the dog to the set I cut a rectangle of plasticine out of the dogs back and in that epoxied a steel plate of the same size. This would allow me to secure the dog with magnets to the set. 

Different colour plasticine was used to add spots to the dog, and miliput eyes where then added to the face. Milliput was used for eyes as I needed these solid and not to change shape. 

I Had Time to do Bare Feet!

So yeah, at this point I had been thinking for a while that I did not want to pursue the shoe idea, and I had some time spare before moving on to do the dog and zombie creature. 

So I decided I really wanted him with bare feet and began the process of making them. 

I think I had roughly 5 days or so to complete all this, in between making the dog and zombie. 

Where I went wrong last time was trying to sculpt realistic feet, I then talked to my lecturer who told me that I just had to simplify what I was doing. So with that, I created small indents between the toes instead of trying to create individual sculpted toes.

Due to the mad rush of having multiple things going on at once and needing to do things quick I forgot to take an image of the feet sculpts. But I have them from the clay process, so lets roll with that.

As you know, if you've read my other mold making blogs, that I clay up my sculpts in a water based clay and plasticine keys are then put on to ensure once molded, the mold links together without shifting.

For more in depth explanations on this please visit my specific mold making posts for Max, as this will be a brief overlook on how I did the entire foot process.

If you've noticed, this time I did not block the ball joints because this will make it easier to to suspend the armatures in the middle when casting.

Learning from previous mistakes! 

The sculpt is then boxed up with foam board and secured with hot glue.

Once the plaster had cured the water based clay was pulled off. Any small pieces close to the sculpt was brushed of with water.

The second half was now ready to pour. I applied a release agent to the mold, and also plasticine to cover up any dead space. It was boxed up and I now poured the plaster.

The 2 halves were now done and the casting process was the next step.

I began by painting in a layer like I always do. But this time I wanted to try the technique of mixing pigment in to the silicone. This is because I wanted the feet to have a muddied look to them, so I went with trying to mix swirls of brown in to the feet.

Once casted you can see that I didn't mix the swirl of colour close enough to the edge of the mold. So I only got a a faint tint of the brown. So the brown would need to be added on later.

But first, taking down the seam had to be done. To do that I used a stone tool on the dremel to sand the seam line down, to ensure the dremel did not rip the silicone, washing up liquid was used to coat the seam lines.

I then applied the brown pigment of silicone to the feet. This was just painted on to try and mimic mud on the feet. The feet were then suspended in a vice to dry.

When the feet were in the last couple of hours of curing, I then put talcum powder on to the feet. This is done to take the shiny gloss finish off of the silicone and give a matt finish.

The talc was applied to the other foot and left for another hour or so. The talc would then be wiped off with a baby wipe.

And the feet were finished!!

Im now happy that Max has bare feet, as this now goes with how I envisioned him in my 2D concept. 

   

Connecting the Head!

This is were I messed up! 

I believed to connect the head to the neck I could drill a hole in the top and bottom of the head and run a piece of K+S through the head and be able to connect the neck to that K+S. I thought that epoxying the K+S to the top of the head would make it secure. I realised this would not happen, due to the fact how hollow the head was and how little fast cast was at the top of the head! 

Therefore I needed to find another way of securing head to the neck!

Not something I wanted to do close to the end of building the puppet.

However

After talking to Andy, my lecturer (Who was a huge help with this ENTIRE project!!)  we both thought about cutting a section off the top of the head, placing K+S inside and securing it to the bottom of the head.

Its quite hard for me to explain so I'll show it all in pictures :) 

So I started with marking out where I would cut the head open

Once marked I began cutting in to it. I used a dremel, and used the cutting wheel tool, although some areas were quite thin, some had thick areas of fast cast that my cutting tool couldn't reach therefore I also had to use the sanding bit and sand the opening.

This was only some of the fast cast 'sawdust'

The head was now cut open and I could begin trying to make a section where the neck could slot in to.

What I decided to do was take a piece of K+S and cover it with milliput. The milliput was used for 2 reasons.

1. The K+S had to stop halfway down the point of the milliput you see below. This was to ensure the ball joint of the neck could go inside the head.

2. The milliput acts as a bigger surface area which allows me to adhere the miliput to the fast cast. 

You can see that there are holes in the milliput, this is to allow epoxy to grip on to it when I adhere it to the head to make it more secure.

A lot of epoxy was now put on to the connection point to adhere it securely to the head. This had to be secure as possible as I didn't want this breaking off during animating. If this snapped off it would stop me animating all together! 

Head is now fully secured to the neck!
Getting close to finishing Max!

I'm Not Good with Documenting Clothes!

I will admit, I was very bad at documenting the clothing process for Max! 

During this time I went back home to the Rhondda (South Wales) to sew the clothes for Max as I needed my mothers help!! (I'm not good at sewing!) 

During this time I forgot my camera and had to take photos on my phone, with this change, I kept forgetting to take photos as I was on such a tight deadline to finish the clothes within a couple of days.

But I do have some of when I was at home so hopefully you'll understand what i'm doing!
So here we go.

I needed to pad the armature out to begin. This was to ensure when the clothing was put on top it give the illusion that there is a body underneath.

The padding out was done in foam and then cut to size with a small scissors.

Once the foam was cut to shape the limbs, I then began the process of making the clothes.
To start the clothes, I began by wrapping cling film around the body. 

Once cling film was wrapped around I could start wrapping the puppet in masking tape.

I would then cut the masking tape off with a scissor and I then had a template of the size of the leg. The cling film is added to easily remove the masking tape from the armature. 

Once that was done I traced around my template on to fabric and began sewing the clothes.
The steps I used might be explained better on Sean Gregory's blog. This is where I learnt the technique.

http://seangregoryanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/week-5-puppet-making-padding-skinning.html

This is the part I forgot to take photos as I had a lot to do in very very little time to ensure I kept on schedule.

So the trousers were now done. To get the right fit, the trousers were sew and if they were to baggy and loose on the puppet, they were removed and re stitched closer together. 

Now back in student accommodation, I now had to tidy up the clothing. To do the shirt, material was cut to a 'waistcoat' style on the armature, then sleeves were sewn on after. Again sorry for no pictures!

I was now at this stage and needed to cut the sleeves to where I wanted them. 

Once cut the same was done on the other side.

To bring some character to the clothing I wanted Max to have a rope belt. therefore string was cut to length and then super glued on.

 

the string was not tied around the trousers. A piece of string was placed and glued around the trousers and a knot was glued to the front afterwards to give the illusion it was tied.

The more you know!

To ensure the edges of the fabric did not fray later on and while animating, I applied 'fray check' to the edges of the fabric, this is easy to apply and dries clear and hard to give a protective layer to the edges.

The collar was added on separately, to do this a pattern of a collar was cut to size.
The pattern was then folded to create the collar look and then secured on with a tiny dots of super glue.

The clothing was now done!!
The trousers were cut to short deliberetly to give more character to the clothing
Now it was time to add wear and tear to the clothing.

To make the clothing look dirty, old and worn chalk pastels were used, similar to how I did the head.

I mixed some black and brown chalk pastel shavings together 

You can see the difference the chalk pastel make on the puppets left leg compared to his right.

Patches were also added to give a more old worn look. To do this I cut some small squares out of excess material I had. I began to fray the edges of this patch and then I applied fray check to ensure it kept the fray look, but stop any more fraying occurring. Then chalk pastel were brushed on to darken them up and then super glues to the fabric.   

You'll have to look quite closely on the second image to actually see but I cut in to the back of the fabric to expose the K+S hole which would be used for the rig.

To cover this up to make the puppet look more aesthetically pleasing. I applied a patch of fabric to the back which looks like a pocket. 

Only half of the pocket is glued on therefore I can expose and covered the K+S hole when needed.

When talking to my lecture he advised to have a ball joint for the neck.This was due to the stress the wire would go through with such a big head. Also if I wanted the head to turn side to side that would mean the wire within the neck would keep unraveling or tightening depending on the direction of the head turn.  As I didnt have time to cast a new neck, and having a the ball joint within the neck would be to big of a neck for Max, we decided to attach the ball joint to the wire. This would bean the wire would be used to bend the head back and fourth, but the ball joint would be used for twisting of the head.

Complicated I know! 

To finish the detail I decided to add buttons to the shirt. My first plan was to order very small ones of e-bay, however I could not find small enough button to be in scale with Max so I decided to sculpt them. 

I rolled very small balls of super sculpey and then flattened them, I then out 2 holes in them with a needle and baked the button!

heres the size comparison to a grain of rice! 

Clothing is not my favourite thing to do in the process of creating the character although they do make the characters personality! I may consider sculpting the clothing next year and casting them in silicone. But not to sure yet!