Puppet woes

The puppet has gone through several transformations in the last week - mostly in just being taken apart due to problems with the model then reassembled (and in turn, causing even more problems). A comprehensive list of things contributing so far to failure:

-using the wrong type of wire
-not solidifying the joints properly
-making the model too big
-not creating a solid base for the feet (or having enough weight)
-not considering the range of motion I want my model to perform
-NOT planning the model out first, specifically the mechanics.

However, the model is a lot better right now ... it just took a lot of inefficiency on my part to stumble to that point.

I prefer to do more technical exploration, but not deciding on my character and my characters movements beforehand made it hard to make this puppet. Because I am planning to use a chiaroscuro sort of visual, I realized a bit late on that the puppet could have a lot of its body hidden in the dark areas and I could construct a more solid way to move it the way I want it to. Since I hadn't decided what my puppet would do I ended up trying to make a puppet that has a large freedom of movement which overcomplicated the process. Since I invested so much time in making this puppet more 'free', I decided to just carry on with it anyways instead of changing the design now... but it is something I will consider later on.

The puppets background and actions are a little more decided now so I can get on with finishing it in an appropriate manner.

Some concept imagery of the character, Lumea.

Back to Puppets

Even though I never visualize projects in live action, I keep getting myself drawn into puppetry over and over again. I am making a new puppet for this project, using wire armature. My goal is to keep the skeletal part of the body completely black and drape led lights over top to create the shape of the body through the light. Hopefully the body won't show through. I should have planned out the model before starting but I decided today to just start working and see what I ended up with.

So this is some documentation of my first armature puppet.

Here he is with the lights draped on to see how they fit-


































a little step-
























and a little test walk.



I used braided wire to create the bone structure to keep the legs and body rigid, and a single strand of wire to use for joint movements. I like how the puppet balances but the movement is far too rigid. I will have to rethink how the puppet is moving.