Puppet Building

for Stop Motion Animation

My film Bound by Fear is a story about a book binder, named Hugh, and his creation, Leo, who work together to battle the dark shadows that are consuming all the books in the bookstore.

https://mikayla486.wixsite.com/puppetbuilding

Character 1 - Leo

Leo is a little lizard like creature who has a curious nature and a habit of getting in trouble. He has a fierce determination but is not the bravest of fellows. Leo will be constructed out of plasticine to allow more flexible movement and will allow him to be morphed into different shapes.

Character 2- Hugh

Hugh is a kind quiet man who is always in control of everything that he does in his life. He is a creative artist but with a strict routine of book binding artistry and selling his books. Hugh's character will be constructed from an Aardman armature, silicon hands and feet, a plasticine head and clothed in hand sewn fabric.

An Example of the Puppet Making Process

The first step I take in constructing a stop motion puppet is by drawing a detailed character design and sketching up a scaled outline of my character with accurate proportions. From this drawing I can measure my twisted wire and start building my core skeleton. Next I add polymorph plastic, K & S Tubing, and Balsa wood to my armature to build up the bones. After that I wrap the whole armature in sports tape this is so that the plasticine sticks better to the armature. I then cast silicon hands and feet for my character and build the rest of the body up with plasticine or harder unbaked clays such as super sculpty.

Next I begin work on the finishing details. I start with hand painting pupils onto glass beads. Next I iron some dolls hair and attach it to a polymorph plastic 'hat' that I then attach to the head of my character. To finish I cut and sew some clothes for my character and being animating!!!

Silicon Process

To begin the silicon casting process a sculpt of the hands and feet had to be made. Monster clay is the perfect medium for this. Moulds must then be made from these sculpts using wet clay, pinkysil and vaseline as a release agent.

After the moulds are made the armature is put in-between moulds and silicon is poured in. After about and hour the moulds are taken off and the silicon hand is trimmed with scissors to real a fully functional puppet limb.