So here is my finished puppet. He's a cute lil' cat- but don't let his outer exterior fool you. He is part of an elite force that call themselves "Extinction Force 5". Street performers by day, assassins by night- EF5 tour the world in search of extinct animals to save by eliminating their threat using the latest high tech weapons.
The puppet has adjustable hands and tail that is basically armature wire. The tail is supported inside by L200. His tongue is carved/dyed foam and his eyes are vacuum formed with dremeled (so they match the curve of the eye ball) buttons for pupils . The Fur was patterned in multiple pieces to provide me the grain direction I needed and I used a hair dryer/comb technique in some areas to blend or change some grain direction. The ears also have armature wire so I can adjust their position if I need. The nose is Crayola Model Magic-dried and covered with dyed Antron. The time consuming part was hand stitching the stripes and grey palm on his hands and othe fur work such as trimmimg. I also modified the body a bit so it has more of a cat like look- a bit more longer and curvy :-)
All the armor and the goggles weigh next to nothing as they are L200 craft foam or PVC. The gun is a Nerf water gun which I opened and gutted/modified, then affixed it to a rod. The long sleeve shirt I distressed and ripped in a couple of areas. If this was an actual show I would have also made a couple of more character heads that would be weathered and dirty to reflect the the costume but for this class I decided to not weather the character so I could use him in other projects. I referred to the tutorial by Rob Ramsdell on metallic painting techniques for paining the armor. For flexible L200 I had to prep for painting by coating it with 7 layers of pva glue and 2 coats of black plasti-dip so the paint won't crack after I put it on. I also added decals to the armor for more realism. There is some actual leather work on the belt and goggles as I felt L200 wouldn't provide me the look I wanted. There are leather looking pieces on the back armor that is actually L200 painted to look like the leather I used in the other pieces.The eyes were an issue for me as I wanted to add a black "liner" around the eye because I felt it got lost a bit against the white fur. But after some trials I found the black made him look older and or Gothic, which didn't lend to the character, so I decided to go with the original look of white on white.
I've included some shots without the armor and with his mouth closed.
All in all I learned some amazing techniques from this class which I will definitely use for future projects and would love to thank BJ Guyer for his support and for the pattern this character is based on- funny how much a pattern head can change just by adding a muzzle :-) Thanks also to my other classmates that helped with their suggestions and offered their knowledge to make parts of this build easier.
Thanks again, keep in touch B.J.
PS- Yes I use toilet plungers as puppet stands LOL Don't worry they weren't used prior. LOL
Tom and Pam,
Thank you so much for being a part of the class! The puppets turned out fantastic! 2 completely different approaches to building and design using the same basic pattern and techniques and both with excellent results. Im finishing up the individual critiques and will submit them on Monday.
I hope you'll both be joining me for the next webcourse!
Cheers!
BJ
Comments
The puppet has adjustable hands and tail that is basically armature wire. The tail is supported inside by L200. His tongue is carved/dyed foam and his eyes are vacuum formed with dremeled (so they match the curve of the eye ball) buttons for pupils . The Fur was patterned in multiple pieces to provide me the grain direction I needed and I used a hair dryer/comb technique in some areas to blend or change some grain direction. The ears also have armature wire so I can adjust their position if I need. The nose is Crayola Model Magic-dried and covered with dyed Antron. The time consuming part was hand stitching the stripes and grey palm on his hands and othe fur work such as trimmimg. I also modified the body a bit so it has more of a cat like look- a bit more longer and curvy :-)
All the armor and the goggles weigh next to nothing as they are L200 craft foam or PVC. The gun is a Nerf water gun which I opened and gutted/modified, then affixed it to a rod. The long sleeve shirt I distressed and ripped in a couple of areas. If this was an actual show I would have also made a couple of more character heads that would be weathered and dirty to reflect the the costume but for this class I decided to not weather the character so I could use him in other projects. I referred to the tutorial by Rob Ramsdell on metallic painting techniques for paining the armor. For flexible L200 I had to prep for painting by coating it with 7 layers of pva glue and 2 coats of black plasti-dip so the paint won't crack after I put it on. I also added decals to the armor for more realism. There is some actual leather work on the belt and goggles as I felt L200 wouldn't provide me the look I wanted. There are leather looking pieces on the back armor that is actually L200 painted to look like the leather I used in the other pieces.The eyes were an issue for me as I wanted to add a black "liner" around the eye because I felt it got lost a bit against the white fur. But after some trials I found the black made him look older and or Gothic, which didn't lend to the character, so I decided to go with the original look of white on white.
I've included some shots without the armor and with his mouth closed.
All in all I learned some amazing techniques from this class which I will definitely use for future projects and would love to thank BJ Guyer for his support and for the pattern this character is based on- funny how much a pattern head can change just by adding a muzzle :-) Thanks also to my other classmates that helped with their suggestions and offered their knowledge to make parts of this build easier.
Thanks again, keep in touch B.J.
PS- Yes I use toilet plungers as puppet stands LOL Don't worry they weren't used prior. LOL