Stop Motion Puppet Building Workshop - Pt.3
Over the course of this week, I have been doing the bulk of my puppet building, and have even started work on a prop so that I am ready to film starting in March. My partner Raj is working on his at the same time, a scarecrow who is going to confront the Ritz the Raccoon after he spills over some trash in another shot. I’m going to document my process step by step, going into as much detail as I can about how it was built.
The images above illustrate my step by step process
I began by cutting foam in Room 54 of the St.Georges Street building, the puppet building workshop was closed for the afternoon so I started my exterior in there. Using a black marker, a scalpel and some nail scissors I had bought, I started marking where I wanted to cut the foam to shape Ritz’s body, and started to cut out sections for the body, arms, and feet. The body was created using a thick piece of square foam cut down the middle and hollowed out, so that it could fit on either side of the torso and stick together at the edges with impact adhesive. I also cut the foam smooth with the nail scissors and trimmed it down as it was originally to thick and bulky - Figure 1
The hands and tail were layered with foam in a similar fashion, where I measured what I needed, cut it out in identical sections, and stuck them together over the top of the wire.
I then measured and cut out a piece of felt for the belly, which I stuck to the front of the body. I used more grey felt than I actually needed, as Barry suggested it would be a good idea to layer some of the fur on top of this (around the sides), revealing the belly underneath, giving the sense of varied fur thickness - because my original intention was to stick the belly on top of the fur as illustrated in a test in Figure 3, which didn’t work out too well as the felt was moving around too much - Figures 2 & 3
The first pieces of fur I began to cut out and apply to my character were for the tail and feet. One important thing to note was the the foam and fur combined was much too thick and bulky, weighing down the character and not giving a very good balance either, as it was too heavy for the wire-frame. So I ended up removing the foam underneath on the tail (which I eventually did on the arms too) so that I could simply apply the fur directly to the wire. The tail was quite simple to cover in the coat, as I just used a rectangular piece of faux fur, wrapped it around the wire (ensuring it curved nicely over the tip) and gradually cut away stripes in the material revealing the darker undercoat to give the impression of the Raccoon tail. At this point it really started to take form. I did the same with the feet, curving it around the wire and attaching it with impact - Figure 4
One issue I had with the tail was that it looked much better on one side than the other, it had a dark seam on the right side that I had to cover by stretching the grey fur section and sticking it down, giving a sharp, not so soft and furry texture.
The arms were created in almost the same way, but I had to push the wire coils (the Raccoon’s claws) through the material. Cutting sections out of the fur material really made a mess and even ended up getting on other people’s characters! - Figures 5 & 6
Earlier on in the week I had bought one of the wooden balls I needed for my character’s head, it costed about £2 but wasn’t hollow, and was the perfect size for the core. I marked roughly where the face would be on the ball, and Barry drilled a hole where it needed to be fitted to the neck wire. At this point it fitted to the neck nicely. Helen asked me about how I would fit the facial features to this, to which I responded with my idea of glueing them on and layering the fur over. Helen said that she had something I could use to sand down dips for where the eyes need to go - a power tool with a sanding bit at the end to get precise sanding on the wooden exterior. Using this, I made dents in the wooden ball for the eyes to be easily fitted - Figures 7 & 8
At the end of the week, once I was happy with my character’s progress and let it set and dry, I started to think about building a prop for the filming set. The bin is made from a grey card, sketched on with a H pencil and a black marker to give it a cel shaded ‘cartoony’ appearance. At first I was not too happy with the result - Figures 7 & 8
A friend of mine (Ryan) then suggested using a cup and lid from a fast food restaurant, as the card I had built was the perfect size for fitting directly onto it - This would also allow the lid to fit perfectly onto the base. I did this by hot glueing the card to the cup and keeping it in place with an elastic band, and I am now happy with the result! During our workshop sessions we had collectively gathered a large amount of of excess material and trash, of which I actually took gladly and put inside of my new prop so that I could use it in the film! This included pieces of cotton/paper and other materials, as well as some leftover beads and a crisp packet.