How to make eye mechanism for toony characters?

Samuelwhiskeyjohnson

I’m new to making animatronics.
Will courses on this website help me make eye mechanisms for toony characters? It seems like the video courses here aims for realism.

Characteristics of toony eyes are that they are not spherical, bigger and they are more vertically elongated compared to realistic eyes.

Examples of toony eye mechanisms:

https://youtu.be/1opWQgXp7LY
https://youtu.be/WiOpOzZHLpo

Chris Ellerby

Many of the techniques and mechanisms used in our puppet-making courses could be applied to characters like those in your examples. 

Here is one of our learning pathways for puppet-making
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/pathways/puppet-making-basics-online-courses-for-beginning-puppet-builders

/Chris

Samuelwhiskeyjohnson

Here is one of our learning pathways for puppet-making

https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/pathways/puppet-making-basics-online-courses-for-beginning-puppet-builders

/Chris

Thanks Chris,
Is there reason why you recommend puppet making course instead of Mechanical & Animatronic FX Basics? I'm more interested in animatronics.

Chris Ellerby

There are many types of eye mechanisms, and the styles used in puppets often adapt better to unusual eye shapes like you mentioned.

If you are interested in animatronics, then I would recommend this course:  https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials/how-to-make-an-eye-mechanism-design-3d-printing-assembly

Just keep in mind that if you want to change the shape of your eye you would need to adapt the design, and some motions may not be possible.

/Chris