Puppet Casting: Silicon body parts

To cast the silicon body parts, I had to make sure that I first mixed each colour correctly. I had to use oil paints and then added a small amount of each colour into a pot of silicon. 

The first casts for the Rumpelstiltskin puppet didn't work very well, they were too gooey and thin and didn't set properly, so I'll need to re-do these. I think this must be because I didn't mix it properly. 

Luckily the hands for the Troll king and the Millers hands and feet and the Millers Daughter's body parts all came out perfectly first time which I am very relieved about, as if they hadn't I'd have had to buy more silicon which would have set me back another week. 

Once I'd taken the hands and feet out of the mould,I had to carefully cut off the extra silicon and trim it down as close to the shape of the arm as possible.

The second attempt at Rumpelstiltskin's hands and feet worked much better, and all the silicon cured correctly, however the silicon had run out of the mould some how in the arms, meaning that the hands had worked perfectly, but the arms were really thin and wirey. This meant that I would need to edit the costume to cover the arms because I did not have time to order more silicon and recast them.

Recording the Narrator

I have asked my friend Cory to be the Narrator because I think he has a good, relatively deep story telling voice. We went into the Sound Booth at uni to record and it went really well. We got through most of the lines without problem but we had to change parts of the script to make it shorter so that it fit in the time frame and we changed a couple of words to make it sound more modern. I also decided to change the final line of the version we were using to include the details of how and why he tore himself in two.

Stick on Mouths

To do the mouths and facial expressions for my puppets, I am going to use stick on mouths and eyebrows. For this, I am going to use the vinyl cutter and print some vinyl stickers to use. I will need to have all the facial expressions that I might need ready to print off, so Cara has drawn up some facial expressions for the king and Rumpelstiltskin and the Millers Daughter. The Miller wont need any mouths drawn as he doesn't have a visible mouth, it is hidden by his moustache. I will just need to brown rectangles for his eyebrows to create his expressions. I will need to book in to use the vinyl cutter in the next couple of weeks.

Plasticine Puppets: Miller

 I have made some plasticine hands and legs for my Miller character. I had to make the hands a little bigger than on my clay maquette so that I would be able to animate them. This should work out fine though as they don't look too much bigger. 
For the legs, I don't need to make detailed feet as they will be inside shoes. I had to make the legs as the characters clothes only reach just below the knees. I made the legs reach above the knee so that there isn't a possibility of the clip foamed sponge showing up accidentally when the puppet is moving.

Plasticine Puppets: Girl

For the Millers Daughter character, I had to make almost her full legs in plasticine for the moulds as she is wearing a skirt that will move more than the other characters trousers and shorts. Because of this I need to make sure that no foam will be on show if the skirt moves. I also had to make her feet as her character is bare foot and I had to make sure her feet fit over the armature's feet. I also had to make them look in proportion to the rest of her character which was a bit of a challenge.
I also had to make both of her hands and arms up past the elbows as her top is a 3/4 sleeve. Her hands are also the smallest out of all the characters so I had to put more detail into less space which was very tricky. This character is different to the others as I also had to create a bust for a mould as she is wearing a low cut top. This meant I had to work out how wide her shoulders will be and make sure that it fit over the armature. 

Silicon test

I have done a couple of silicon tests to make sure the moulds work and also to work out how to correctly do the silicon as last time I cast a puppet in silicon it didn't work. This could have been because I didn't mix it properly or I added in too much oil paint.

My clear silicon tests worked perfectly. One of the moulds didn't fill the whole way when I poured it in from the end, I think this is because the silicon is really thick and didn't run down into the hand and instead just got blocked in the pouring hole that I made. The second mould, however, worked really well. This one I just filled each half until they were slightly too full and then just squeezed them together. The silicon dried really quickly and this silicon hand was evenly filled out. The only problem with this one was that it was quite bubbly but I think the bubbles won't be too noticeable when the silicon is coloured. 

I also tried a coloured one where I mixed oil paints into the silicon. According to the guys at Animation Toolkit, the oil paints should be about 10% of the amount of silicon so I had to mix a really tiny amount of oil paint into it. What I found with this was that the silicon got very gloopy and set really quickly which meant it didn't pour as well as the clear silicon and I thought I had done it wrong, but it set just the same as the clear silicon so I think it will work fine as long as I pour it really quickly into the moulds. 

Clay Maquette of the Miller

I have finished the clay maquette for Miller character. I approached it in the same way as the other clay maquettes. This one was quite difficult as I put him in a kind of pose as that is the way that Anna Denison had drawn him. Because of this, it was quite difficult to keep him balanced. His ankles and knees are quite weak so they will need glueing when the clay has dried before painting. I also had to use a little wire and a clay base to keep him from falling forward while the clay dried. Once the clay has dried and I have fixed the ankles with UHU glue I believe he will be able to stand up on his own.

Puppet building: Clip-foaming.

After I built the Armatures, I used the clip-foaming technique to pad out the body. This means that I will not have to make the body out of silicon, making the puppet cheaper to make and lighter and easier to move. Clip-foaming consists of cutting sponge (that you can buy from wilkos for really cheap) into shapes that are roughly the size and shape of the characters limbs and then using nail scissors to carefully clip the sponge into the shape of the character. This can then be covered in clothes and silicon and hidden from sight. 

Set Design: Forest

As Sophie wasn't able to complete the last two set designs, I created a rough sketch and concept art to give Elliot an idea of what I want the forest set to look like. The scene in the forest is where Rumpelstiltskin is found dancing around a fire singing about how his name is Rumpelstiltskin and he's going to get the royal baby. This is quite an important scene so I wanted to make sure the set design got this across. I included the larger tree in the foreground for the person who finds him to peer out from. I will need to find a way to make a fire in stop motion and create the lighting. 

I have sketched up a rough size for the set based on how big the Rumpelstiltskin puppet is and where the most important trees need to be. The rest can be less detailed or added in in post production if necessary. 

Making moulds for Resin

To make the Resin heads, I had to create a silicon mould. To do this, I buried each head to the half way point in clay and used wooden boards and clamps to create a wall around them. I then mixed the mould making silicon together and poured a thin layer onto the head. Once this was dry I mixed a thicker layer of silicon and carefully spread this over the area where the head is.

I then expanded the walls and created a plaster cast around this half of the head. After the plaster had set, I flipped over the mould, removed the clay and repeated these steps for the second half.

Character line up

I just quickly put all four characters together in a line up to work out their heights compared to each other to aid me while making them. 
This is the first time all four characters have been next to each other and I think they go well together. 

Miller character Design

Anna Denison also designed the Miller Character.

With Cara, I had constant updates on the characters, allowing me to give instant feedback. I didn't have this with Anna, but it still worked well.She first sent me a selection of ideas she had been working on (above) and then let me choose the elements that I preferred from each character. I said that I liked the tall skinny guy and the shorter guy and asked if it was possible to make a character with the hair and height of the shorter guy but make him a lot skinnier. I also said I preferred the shorter guys outfit although the buttons would be more awkward. I prefer the moustache on the tall skinny man but the shorter mans moustache would be easier to sculpt and work with.




















Here are the final designs for the Miller character. Anna said she had difficulty making the body shape as skinny as I had hoped while keeping the hunched back and short height. This is okay though as I can adjust the size while I am sculpting. I really like how he's turned out overall and I love the colours. She found a midway point between the two faces and moustaches and I think this will work well.