This has been, undoubtedly one of the most complicated processes which I have ever gone through. There were just so many little steps that needed to be followed to get it finished. But it is also the fact that it was so many small steps that made it possible. Anything big must be done in small steps, and now I have a much larger arsenal.
As I posted earlier the ball and socket metal work was quite interesting. Workshops as some of my favorite places to be.
This is an image of my armature. It broke and had to be fixed. The issue was with the solder. There are a few problems with the solder. The first is that I didn't solder hot enough some of the time. It would melt, but it really needs to liquefy. The next issue with the solder was that I was putting 1/8 inch rod into holes that were 9/64th inch. This small gap made the solders weaker. I would have stronger solders with 1/8 rod in 1/8 holes. My final suspicion is that I used silver solder whose melting point was too low. Mine was 450 degree Fahrenheit melting point, while there do exist silvers solders with 700 degree melting points that might be stronger.
All will also file down all of the corners of all of the joints. They aren't really sharp as I did file them, but they do stick out when the puppet is manipulated in some positions.
I would also spend a lot more time developing a more robust hand system. The one I created will wear out and is not particularly flexible.
I then proceeded to sculpt the puppet. I used high quality plasticine that is quite rigid some compared to other types. I found sculpting on top of a nice armature very enjoyable.
I was particularly happy with the plasticine sculpt of my character. I was concerned that the armature would be obvious inside of him, but through some design choices I think he looks pretty distinctive and organic. The next time I will hopefully have more time. I actually did the whole sculpt inside of eight hours in near a continuous working session.
It was then time for a two part mold. Due to limit supplies, I had to really stretch all of my materials for the mold. While this didn't really hinder my work, it definitely made my mold distinctive to the rest of the class.
After the mold had dried, it was time to take him out. The molding process generally with wreck the plasticine version, which is just fine because I have to get the armature out anyways.
There is always a lot of struggling opening molds and getting things out of them. This is another thing that takes a lot of finesse yet sometimes a good chunk of force as well.
It was then time for the foam latex. This involves mixing chemicals, very quickly putting those chemicals along with the armature into the mold. The whole thing than goes in the oven for a few hours. This was the part of the process that could have failed the worst. I only had a single batch of foam latex so there were no second tries.
The armature needed to be very carefully position in the mold as to not have any of it touch the sides. I sort of just fudged this. There was simply no way the armature could touch any sides. I have extremely thin foam in some areas.
The moment of truth occurred a few hours later. He emerged.
The foam latex didn't work out perfectly, but it was usable. There was some loss of chin and bubbles. But after such a long process, it still managed to work pretty well. Paint is pretty much all that follows.
And that is the creation of the Car Matador. My first foam latex puppet with ball and socket armature. Now it is time to sleep.
Kyler
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