Armature Design

Measurements of the armature over my character.

How the armature will look.

The finished armature.

Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books. 

References Into Building Stop Motion Puppets

How To Create A Stop Motion Puppet

A stop motion puppet needs to be designed for the purpose of the film and what it will be required to do. It needs to be strong enough to hold a pose between frames, and needs to withstand being touched and moved frequently.

Making sure that the puppet is the right size for use is the first thing to consider. Puppets that are too small will be hard to create detail and will be difficult to manoeuvre. Also puppets that are too tall will often be difficult to keep in position between frames and will also be costly as the set will have to be big to fit the puppet in the environment.

So designing the characters that are fit for purpose and work within the desired world created for them is the best place to start before making the puppet.

measuring for an armature I 

made in my stop motion module.

Creating a wire skeleton to put the clay or silicone over will ensure the puppet will stay in position and will bend for the joint movement.

A quick armature I made as a practice.

In future models I will make the armature a lot 

sturdier to withstand the frequent movement.

Padding out the skeleton with styrofoam will make the puppet lighter than if it was padded out with plasticine or clay.

Armature made for practicing sculpting

in my stop motion module.

After the skeleton has been padded out the clay or silicone can be added over the top to create a skin.

In places where there is going to be clothes, the padding wont necessarily won't need to be covered as this will be adding weight that isn't needed.

I have a demonstration link for silicone mold making here: 

http://louisestopmotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/silicone-mold-making.html

Making Norman From ParaNorman

Face Replacements

For the head most modern stop motion films will use face replacements.

This means the facial expression can be taken out and replaced with another one.

Rapid prototyping, or 3D printing is to create a 3D computer model and have it printed out as a physical replica. The technology behind rapid prototyping has many other uses and implications in itself, but in the film Coraline (2009) helped put it on the map for the use as an animation technique. The area of the film where it was used the most was the facial animation on certain main characters. The faces on characters like Wybie, Coraline's Mother, Other Mother, and Coraline herself consisted of thin replacement masks that we removed and replaced for each frame of the animation.

Priebe, K. A. and Selick, H. (2010) The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation [With CDROM]. 1st edn. Boston, MA: Course Technology Cengage Learning.

I found this YouTube video by animateclay on how to make replacement heads, it's helpful in the way he shows how to mould the heads and where to position the cut-off point.

The Making Of The Sets And Replacement Faces Of ParaNorman

I have also found a blogger who makes his own replacement heads

Link: http://graham-skinnbones.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/ball-socket-replacement-mouths.html

He has also made his own realistic fox armature.

Link: http://graham-skinnbones.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/ball-socket-stop-motion-armature-fox.html

And the finished fox here: http://graham-skinnbones.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ball-socket-stop-motion-armature-fox.html

Also another blogger, Nathan Flynn, who builds stop motion models: http://nathan-flynn.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/puppet-head-sculpt-actress.html#.VofvXpOLTVp

And his brother, Joshua Flynn: http://joshua-flynn.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/puppet-head-sculpt-mail-man.html

StopmoNick - Making silicone puppet head

Building The Replacement Heads

To create Captain Cut-Throat's head I will be making a resin cast from a sculpey made head, and then filling the cast with silicone. Inside the silicone will be wires attached to a neck mount which will keep the shape of the head when then nose and cheeks are moved into the different facial positions.

Main Head Shapes

The Three Main Head Shapes

By making the head shapes out of plasticine I can get an idea of what the finished silicone head will look like when it has been cast.

The straight facial shape is used for when the character is thinking or concentrating.

The downward head shape is for when the character is talking or angry.

The Upward head shape is for when the character is overjoyed and shocked.

Having these three different head shapes will make replicating the different face shapes easier with my main finished silicone head and I can then create the different eye and mouth shapes separately using oven baked clay rather than making a head for each expression, these features can be changed instead, this will make my project cost effective and I will also have less heads to cast in the silicone.

Inside The Heads - Neck Mount

To attach the head to the armature and remove it again easily, I need to make a neck attachment and use Albion Alloy Tubing to be placed inside the head.
Also I need to attach the wires that will move the cheeks and nose to this tubing.
The diagram below shows how the neck, tubing and wires will be placed.

Albion Alloy Tubing

Casting

To be able to make a cast for my character I needed to make
the standard head shape out of Sculpey.

I then cut out the plates for the eyes and mouth and added the neck.

The plates for the eyes and mouth would be covered up in plasticine when cast so that it would be less likely to get stuck in the mould but I wanted to make sure that there was enough surface area in the head for the plates to be taken in and out.

Building a box out of foam board and plasticine, I put the head onto a bed of plasticine and started to cover it in the resin. Only putting a small amount of the resin in at a time and letting it dry made sure there was no leaks in my box and if there were it could be sealed using more plasticine.

Unfortunately once the resin had dried and I'd pulled apart the box and plasticine the head couldn't be removed. This was either because I hadn't greased the head before pouring in the resin or because the half way mark wasn't correct.

To make sure this didn't happen again with my next attempt at casting the head, I used one of my plasticine heads instead of the Sculpey head. Using plasticine will guarantee that the head will come out. This is because the resin becomes very hot when it is setting, causing the plasticine to melt slightly, making it come away from the mould. Unfortunately this means that the head can not be used to cast again. So this method wouldn't be useful on models that are quite intricate and are needed to be used again.

I also found that mixing the two parts of the resin can be a tricky task because if the two parts aren't equal the resin won't completely set and will have a putty-like texture.

This happened to me on my second attempt and I then had to wait for it to set as much as possible and then pull it away and start again.

I have put a picture of this attempt bellow and I could tell that the ratio of the two liquids wasn't correct because the colour was quite murky and not the white colour it should have been.

Thankfully my second attempt worked and I will now be able to use this mould to cast from.

I think after going through this process and seeing how easily the mould making can go wrong, this will make me think twice about the models I make in the future. Especially when it comes to the shape of them, If they are a generic head shape they will be easier to cast and also those casts can be used for further projects I may do in the future. This will make the projects easier and faster because I will have the mould ready and will only need to go through the silicone casting process.

As I had never used silicone before I did a couple of tests of casting some sphere shapes, and after a couple of tries I managed to get the consistency right.
I then lined my mould with the orange pigment and started to fill it with the silicone.

Then piecing the two parts together and securing with elastic bands, I poured more of the silicone in to fill in the gaps.

Once the silicone inside the head mould had set, I pulled the pieces apart.

Unfortunately there wasn't enough silicone to fill in the back part of the head. But I think this has been a successful test, as the front of the head moulded very well.
I think that for my next try I should use thinner wire to make the armature inside the head as it can be seen slightly through the silicone.
I also found that the pigment I've used doesn't dry onto the silicone when it is setting so I won't paint the mould next time I cast, I will just mix it into the silicone.
I will also only fill both sides of the mould with a small amount and let it dry before filling the mould together, I think this will then solve the problem of the air pocket at the back of the head when it is setting.

Before putting the main colour of silicone in, I have put a small amount of black for
the nose and let it set.
In my character design Captain Cut-Throat has a small amount of yellow under his nose, but I haven't been able to get the silicone to paint on that part without it looking messy, so I will make the mouth replacements with the yellow so it still fits with the character design.

Based on the book Here Be Monsters text © Jonathan Emmett 2013 and illustration © Poly Bernatene 2013, first published by Macmillan Children’s Books.

Silicone Casting Research

In my second year I was given a demonstration on how to cast using silicone.
Link here: http://louisestopmotion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/silicone-mold-making.html
It was a fairly easy process to follow and as my heads are very simple I don't think I'll have much trouble casting them.

I have also looked at the website Instructables, to see if it had any further methods on making my moulds.
I found this step by step guide helpful: http://www.instructables.com/id/Two-Part-Silicone-Casting/
The person who made these instructions has also made a FAQ section which answers a fair few questions that other people have put up with the problems they have come across so I will find that helpful if I come across any problems when I start to cast my heads.

There's a blog called Skin & Bones on blogger created by puppet fabricator Graham Read. He has put up the step by step process of making the replacement heads for Nev Bezaire's project "Foxes".
The first post shows how the heads were made: http://graham-skinnbones.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/ball-socket-replacement-mouths.html

The second post is of the silicone over the top of those heads: http://graham-skinnbones.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/ball-socket-replacement-mouths-for-stop.html