In The Details Part #2 : Casting Glances

      When building a character, I feel it is critically important to get the eyes right. It's usually the first detail anyone notices and you can convey a world of information through the eyes.In the past, I've used several different techniques to make eyes for my puppets. I've used polymer clay, ping pong balls -painted and coated with high gloss varnish, commercially made doll eyes and  even working L.E.D's to name just a few. Each of these works to good effect. Recently, though I discovered a simple and highly effective method for making resin cast eyes which has quickly become one of my favorite techniques. I'm going to show you two different variations of this method, partly so you can see the different results and partly because I'm not sure which approach will look better with my puppet.

     First you need some clear casting resin. this is available either in a two part variety, where you mix equal amounts of resin and hardener, or the kind where you add a small amount of catalyst into the resin. Either kind works fine. I'm using the two part type simply because it's what I happen to have on hand. whichever kind you use,measure and follow the mixing instructions EXACTLY as they are written. The batch I made before this one never hardened properly because I didn't stir the mixture enough.  Pay careful attention to the safety precautions and work in a well ventilated area while preparing the resin... or don't. Live your own lives, people!

 Once the mixture is ready, you can pour it into the round indentations of those cheap plastic circular palates that are available anywhere that sells art supplies. I'd suggest using new ones or having a set exclusively for this purpose. Casting resin will pick up anything it touches, so the cleaner your mold is, the better. Let the resin set for 24-48 hours (or whatever the instructions suggest). Once the resin hardens, you can crack it out, just like you would ice cubes. You'll wind up with a small pile of  nice round clear lenses. Select the ones with the fewest air bubbles and imperfections. Now the fun begins!

 Using acrylic paint, I first paint  the pupils onto the back (flat side) of the eye blanks. This process is a lot like painting on glass, you want to do the most visible details first. Notice that I've painted the pupils slightly off center. This males the eyes "cross" slightly, which gives the puppet a sharper focus. Size and shape of the pupils are also important. Our own pupils dilate when we see something or someone we like, which creates a subconscious sympathetic response in those around us. In practical character design terms, the larger the pupil, the more sympathetic the character appears. Conversely, smaller pupils make a character look more sinister and aggressive. Because I want my devil to be reasonably likable, I gave him fairly large pupils. I briefly considered giving him rectangular pupils like a goat's, but decided that round ones would be less eerie looking

I now paint the whites around the edges. this will give me a relatively clean edge around the iris. I like to let my eyes be a bit "painterly". I think it gives them a lot of personality and I don't have to worry about getting the edges perfectly round.

 Here's where I start to deviate methods. One pair of eyes will be painted entirely on  the back of the lens. this method looks sharper and usually works best for video or animals. The other pair will be painted on the curved part of another pair of lenses. When I finish, I will put the two pieces together, flat side to flat side. It creates depth and generally works great for human characters and live performance. Either way I start with my lightest color and accents. I painted a few highlights around the pupil to further help create depth. I'm going to male my irises a catlike greenish-yellow. This will stand out nicely against my devil's red skin. Incidentally, if were to paint the pupils to onto the back of the two-part eyes, the convex/concave relationship would make them appear to follow the viewer.

 After the first layer dries, I add a slightly darker yellow and light green. I find painting overlapping asterisks gives the iris a nice faceted texture.

 I add some darker accents into the empty spaces for contrast. Here I'm using a light blue to add variety to the color. I find that the more layered you make the iris, the more intelligent your character looks

 In order to fill in the remaining gaps, I paint on a golden brown-ish base coat. The eyes are starting to look a bit muddy from the back, but this doesn't matter. They will only ever be seen from the other side

 I found that the first base coat was more translucent than I wanted and that I would like more contrast, so I painted some dark brown accents.

 Finally, to fill in the remaining gaps, I add another layer of yellow ochre.

 Here are the finished results. The top pair are the one-part eyes and the bottom pair are the two-parters. Notice the difference? I attach the two pieces by either hot glue or super-glue around the edges

 I can now test them out on my puppet to see which ones work the best.

Stay tuned for the results! 

In The Details: A Puppet Build-Along. Part #1- Head's Up!

    A lot of people ask me about my construction methods. I am always a bit hesitant to describe them. My puppet building techniques are a strange hodge-podge of things I found in books, tricks other puppeteers have shown me and things that I apparently invented. oftentimes when I am working around other puppeteers, I will do something that seems to my mind to be the only logical solution or method of handling a material only to find those around me are astonished that anyone would use that method to get those results. This comes out of trial and error more than any attempt to be innovative. As a mostly self educated puppet builder, I'm not entirely sure where what I've figured out from just playing with materials ends and traditional established technique begins
   I don't believe this is much different than any other puppeteer. To a certain extent I think we all build on what we know in our own way. In short, what I hope to demonstrate by this exercise is not how to build puppets, but how I built one particular puppet. This is intended as a demonstration rather than a tutorial. for all I know there are way better methods than mine. So far this is the best I've come up with.

Methodology:
In this demo I am building an old devil puppet for a video project I have in mind. The basic design will be a hand-and-rod puppet, similar in operation to "The Muppets", but hopefully quite different in overall effect. I know basically what I want, but I don't ordinarily work from a sketch so the process stays fresh and I allow myself to be open to discoveries. To make this post, each time I added something new, I would stop and photograph what I had just done.  I edited out some of the smaller steps for brevity's sake. I will describe my methods and thought process at each photo. Hopefully the cumulative effect will be a relatively step-by-step document of the creation of this piece.

 Materials:
-Wood, leather and fabric to make the mouth part
-A roll of 1" thick medium-firm compression poly-foam. (This is slightly denser than I ordinarily use. I thought I'd try a different compression. It woks fine.)
-Pair of very sharp scissors
-Hot glue gun  with high quality hot glue

I have recently become extremely choosy about the blend of hot glue stick that I use. Good hot glue makes a world of difference! You spend a lot less time clamping and swearing. It is more expensive to buy the really good stuff but you use less of it. I order mine online. The stuff you find at the craft stores is practically useless.

 I'm starting with the mouth blank as my base. This is simply two pieces of thin wooden board shaped and jointed with leather. The straps are also leather I may later replace them with wide elastic strips

I took a small sheet of foam and glued it to the curved edge of the lower "jaw" I want this character to have a pointy chin with a big beard, so I left it bigger than I ordinarily would.

I did the same with the top half. Note that I didn't glue my edges flush, but left a little space in the mouth. That way, if I decide to add teeth later, I'll have room

 Here I rounded the top of the head by gluing the top edges together and created a curve to the front of the skull.

 I added another piece to create the back of the head.

 I wanted the chin to stick out farther to create the character and play up the slight natural under-bite that the puppet already has, so I added another block. Later I will realize that this block is a bit crooked. I will partially correct for that, and decide that I like it slightly askew.

 Here is a closer look at the chin after I've shaped it a bit more by carving it with scissors. I use this technique a lot as you'll see.

 I folded the nose and shaped it before gluing it into place. I like to have the dominant features established first so that I can fit the rest of the face around them

 Now I shape the forehead and brows by adding another piece. I also trim the top of the nose to play up the hooked appearence

I add the cheekbones at this stage. This establishes the eye sockets. The basic planes of the face have been set at this point.

I like to have a "test eye" on hand throughout the process. It gives me a better notion of the final appearance and lets me know if my focus is where I want it. Some of you might recognize this as the heron puppet's original eye. If I don't have a spare resin cast eye around, sometimes I'll draw a pupil on a ping pong ball.

 Testing with the eye made me realize that my face was too thin, so I added another layer to the forehead...

 ...and more "meat to the sides of his face. I think he's starting to look like a grumpy old man now, but I want to play up the devil aspect. Time for horns and pointy ears. 

   I know immediately that the ears are longer than I want, but I wait until I can see them in relation to the other features

As I want an old devil, I decided that I wanted long, twisty horns like an old goat's ("Old Goat" by the way is a really fun image search!). To get the twist I wanted out of sheet foam, I had to be inventive.

 Here is one of the horns in process. I pinched the tip together and glued it into place, then I folded the foam back over itself and glued it. The foam naturally wants to spring apart and pull loose. I'm clamping it in place here. This was probably my third attempt to set it. This procedure is time consuming, frustrating and a bit difficult. I heartily recommend against it.

 I've trimmed back the ears and added a base to the horns here.

 Adding the line of the naso-labial trough adds a slight sneer to the face and sets up the location of the nostrils

 I decided to add a little hump to the bridge of the nose to make the hooked profile more dramatic

 Next I add some nostrils by bending a thin strip into place on either side. I briefly toy with the idea of adding a sharper point to the tip of the nose before trimming the bridge and deciding I don't need it. Instead, I give him a lower lip to exaggerate the under-bite and make him have a natural scowl.

 I add a strip to either side of his face to distinguish a stronger contour of the skull and add two blocks to the eyebrows. When I add hair (Hopefully long white fake fur or sheepskin, if I can find it) these will help establish the jutting set of the eyebrows.

 I wanted my character to look more grandfatherly than sinister, so I added crow's feet and kept the curve of the eyelids soft.

 This is where having the '"test eye" around really pays off

 I added the folds of the ears at this point and a few wrinkles around the bottom lip. I may decide to add some ridges on the horns later, but for now, the last three pictures are the final results of this stage

Stay tuned for more!
-J