I've made a timelapse video! I'm really more excited by this than I probably should be...

Now to animate!

I wanted to make a third head, this time in latex again but instead of using milliput to build detail on the 'skull' I wanted to try using foam to see how this differed. Annoyingly I forgot to take pictures of this, but below is what the skull looked like after being covered in a layer of foam dipped in latex. The nose, ears, chin and eyebrows have a layer of approriately shaped foam to create detail. However as you can see where the foam and latex layer has been added, a lot of detail has been lost and looks bulky and clumsy.

I repeated what I had done with the first head, adding a layer of latex that contains hardener. The coloured paint that I added to this, I made sure was darker than the skin tone that I wanted in the final outcome; I found this added a layer of depth once the next layer of latex was added.

The eyeballs are made out of milliput which I sat in the sockets before painting the final latex layer as I could build eyelids around them to hold them in place and give a more realistic look.

The finishing touches were the same as the first puppet: adding talcum powder to matte the skin and hair where appropriate.

I decided to make a second animatable head but this time I wanted to try using different materials to do so: this one would be fabricated in Sculpey rather than creating a latex layer.

I created a head armature as I had done so previously using wire, polymorph and milliput, however this time I gave the head two seperate wire pieces to create the brow as it wouldn't be possible to cover a single wire in Sculpey and be expected to move.

I added a layer of sculpey over the armature and baked it so that it became hard. This was a lot easier to model into the shape that I wanted it to be because I could use modelling tools and because it wasn't drying as I worked. I had to leave parts of the wire exposed such as around the base of the eyebrows and around the jaw so that it would still be able to move. The Sculpey gave a less realistic and more cartoony look. The milliput eyeballs can move in the sockets but had nothing to secure them in place other than the cureved shape of the socket behind them, therefore when animating I will probably use vaseline to make sure they don't fall out.

I added hair as the finishing touches. This also aided in hiding the wire exposed on the jaw and around the brows.

That's the second head ready for animating!

I started off adding a layer a latex that I had added hardener to. Having researched what a lot of other people use when making heads such as these, I found a lot of them had used Copydex which is essentially a slightly harder latex, hence why I started using this. I did find that it was very hard to work with and gave an uneven textured surface which did not look right. It also dries a lot quicker than standard latex so I had to work VERY quickly, so the process was more rushed than I would have liked it to have been. However, I did find that it was handy in being able to build up facial structure, and I was able to build on areas such as the nose and ears.

I applied a second layer of latex that didn't contain hardener which dried smooth, therefore looked a lot more like skin however this was extremely shiney.

For the finishing aesthetic touches I brushed talcum powder onto the latex which gave it a matt effect. Finally I gave him a beard and eyebrows which I attatched with Araldite and pencilled in some pupils.

This is now ready for some animation testing!

I've made the puppet head with replaceable mouth for the lip sync! I'm quite excited by this, look at all the little mouths...

Here are the nine different mouth shapes i created. In Preston Blaires phenome series there are ten different mouths, however I didn't use the 'L' shape.

As you have seen in a previous post, I have made a few sets of latex puppet hands. Here is what they look like.

Following on from my idea of the Librarian character whose veins have words running through them, I thought it would be a good idea to test some materials such as their movement abilities and their aesthetic qualities on these hands in the hope that I will find something that I can use in a future puppet.

As you may have seen in a previous post, I had been stitching words into a dissolvable fabric which would allow me to have thread words which I could then combine with latex onto my puppets hands to create the look of words in the skin.

The end result not surprisingly wasn't very good. The thread had started to unravell so the letters were unledgable and it was very raised up from the skin which didn't look right. When the joints were moved parts of thread became loose whereas others restricted the movement of the hand itself.

For this hand I just used a pemanent marker to write onto the skin. This obviously didn't affect the movement of the hand and was quick and easy to do but it isn't at all what I want it to look like aesthetically.

This is the closest any of the latex hands got to looking how I wanted them to look. However, the book pages would have to be applied to areas of skin that didn't need to move, ie. not on joints as they would rip. Also size is an issues, these hands have been made bigger for experimental purposes so an actual sized puppet hand might find difficulty in having bits of book pages applied to it.

I had bought some translucent liquid sculpey (bought here) just to experiment with. One of it's qualities is that it is a good transfer medium, so I thought I would experiment in trying to transfer a book page onto a sculpey hand. I couldn't do this to a latex hand as the sculpey needed to be baked.

Aesthetically this was perfect! Just what I wanted. However this was obviously on a sculpey hand, and therefore unanimatable and unsuitable for a puppet. My plan is to make a marrionette puppet in this technique and to carry on experimenting for my stop-motion librarian.

I've been stitching letters and words onto a plastic fabric that melts in hot water on my sewing machine using the free-hand foot. These are going to be used in some experiments with latex for a stop-motion puppet's skin. I just quite liked these photo's...

After I had twisted the wire into shape, I added Milliput where the palm should be and let this set hard (bottom left picture below). Now I had a surface for my hand I wanted to experiment with how realistic they could be made to look. Using modelling white Milliput I created tendons and knuckles, then left this to set (bottom right picture below). Once this was dry I could sandwich the armature between two layers of fine foam dipped in latex.

I cut the excess foam away from the armature to reveal the hand shape and then started to paint a fine layer of latex straight onto the hand, completely covering the foam.

Once this had dried I experimented with adding hardened latex onto the knuckles and tendons to further define them (right picture). I then painted a final layer of latex on top of this.

Finally I covered the latex in Talcum Powder to matte it. I was pleased with the overall results, it's hard to see from these photos (I shall try to upload better ones soon) but the hands did have a realistic appeal, with the knuckles and tendons showing. Experimentation with skin colour mixed with the latex would probably be beneficial at a later stage.