Thursday, January 10, 2008

Playing with my new puppet (shel)


Arch Enemy Waltz from handmadeheroes on Vimeo.

here's my new puppet in action.....he's got a bit of a crush on lola....

HERE COMES THE ARMATURE TECH TALK PART, VERY SKIP-ABLE IF YOUR NOT A STOP MO GEEK: i'm not so happy with his most of his armature (ball and socket that i pieced together, and wire from the elbow to the finger tips). you can't say i'm not LEARNING ALOT though! he's too fat, actually i think he's perfectly fat, but the armature isn't strong enough to hold more than the weakest bend in his beefy torso or his muscular legs. and i didn't make a big enough "grip" for the inside of his head, so i'm having a hard time turning it, and even if i had, his neck doesn't hold small enough increments of "yes" or "no". and as for his legs, i want him to be able to squat deeply and stay there without bouncing back (he IS a wrestler afterall!). and i want clavicles so he can shrug. ...and i want....and i want....

on the positive side: his shoulders are good, and so far so good with the wire elbows and fingers too. but the best news is that i LOVE his feet. marvelously maliable-toed supportive feet that i've decided to make even more awesome next time by putting a tie down in his heels as well as his toes. his feet have a socket at the toes and a tie down made simply from a threadable ball.

so i'm not giving up on armature for him yet, when his fingers break i will tear this puppet apart and give the next him a wire spine and i'll figure out better clavicles, but i want to keep the ball and socket shoulders, it'll be a bit frankenstien-y....i'm thinking i'll keep the ball and socket legs but wrap them with some hefty wire that will support the bends and hopefully take up enough space so there's not so much foam in the way. i'm making it up as i go, which is the happy go lucky story of my life, but if anybody has any suggestions about this stuff i'm all ears!

oh yeah, and sorry for the quality, i accidently set the camera to crap size pics.....opps!

11 comments:

Shelley Noble said...

Holy smokes, Shel, that animation performance is awesome! Riggitilicious!

Craig Harris said...

Wow Shel!! Looks like you skipped some steps and jumped right into POWERFUL animation land. Great piece...keep em comin!!!

Adam said...

Haha.. awesome! Great gurrl-power animation. :-B

Jeff Parrott said...

Yeah, you've definately stepped it up. I really dig it!

DallasRobinson said...

hahaha, this looks very nice, You should be proud.

Eric said...

That's awesome!! Love the subtle touches you did one the guy, the flip on the collar and the little leap in front of the girl. Great work!

Daesup said...

oh..I feel so sorry to a dude picking a wrong woman, kind of bad flashback of mine. --; Keep it up!!

Darkmatters said...

Always great to see some animation from you Shel!!!

About making puppets, or learning how to.... it's so tough!!! And (for me at least) every time I think I've got it all figured out something new comes along and kicks my ass. Just because something works on one puppet doesn't mean it'll work on any other ones... grrrrr!

But come on... haven't you girls learned yet, you can't build the perfect man from the ground up! Why do they always think they can change him??!!?? Well ok, I guess a puppet-man you can "mold" exactly how you want him. Just don't make him too perfect, Justin might get jealous!!! ;)

Ryan McCulloch said...

Hey hey hey! This is some great stuff! Good job Shel! You're a pro. I can't wait to see more.

The Beauty and a Geek said...

Nice timing and performance! Your characters are so much fun :D

GREAT JOB!

Anonymous said...

Looks like Justin's mastertouch is rubbing off on ya, Shel.

I like the way you make a pose read, and the way the animation looks so loose and purposeful.

Just like Jriggity--you never waste a frame!