Children just a little bit further!

This post is exciting for me. I have spent a lot of time into making this part of the film, and usually the best parts are when you start adding finishing touches to the characters. So here are the now 13 children... No way was I alone able to make 10 more. My hands hurt soo much and there are so many other things to get cracking on.

Below are the skeletons made of tubes, pipe cleaners, and foam blocks. This process seemed to be very successful due to the light weightness and flexibility. Unfortunately... I am saddened to say that I may not use the special skeletons if they do not work and resort to this method. I hate spending so much time and effort into a project and be forced to abandon it.

I have attached 'biscuits' to the feet from leftover parts from the wagon, Then drilled a hole to fit the magnet into.

Major assembly line! The Foam people, Then the masks, then the Painting:

The evolution of the face:

Felt Hair! And I wrap the skeleton in fabric... Clothes, color, and hands and feet will be added as soon as all of the puppets are finished! I am very happy with how the face came out and the overall aesthetic. This definitely helped me become more motivated to hurry this process up.

Puppets Skeleton Assembled

This was not easy.. There were so many things to fix to make sure it can function right. A ton of stuff had to be done and added to make sure that this thing will stand. Sofar it is looking promising, and it DOES STAND!, the hard part is the one leg up as it is walking.. It ends up being very heavy and the puppet cannot hold its leg in position... We will see more soon.

From here on is where the buildup of materials and repairs begin. Hot glue, crazy glue, elastic, and tape were lifesavers. I dislike how messy it ended up becoming, and realize there are so many better methods, some I have read up on more simple or complicated. I tried to do it my way, more like an action figure, but didn't have enough time to really finesse the details, so here I am doing silly things like loading up joints with all of the elastic and hot glue I can. The best I can say is that as long as it stands, move how I need it, and support itself, there is not much to complain about. In the future I will be able to perfect some sort of product worthy structure...

Evolution of the character...

Stop-motion

Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Here are a List of Stop-motion films. 

This is an example of a puppet's armature structure. Wires bend for the joints and removable hands and feet interchange. My plan is to design a different structure with ball and socket joints so that they move with as little disturbance to the pose as possible. The hands may be interchangeable, although I could do a wire armature inside silicone... can't decide yet, and I don't necessarily have to.