Armature setup

I did the armature setup for Brawl Magnet over the weekend. The process involves adding the finger and face control wires and then getting everything centered up in the mold. This seriously tested my patience and made me respect puppet builders even more. The finger wires were easy enough to measure and attach but the brow and lip wires were really tough! Fitting these wires to the mold requires a lot of trial and error. Once I had the face wires in place it was another challenge to get the two halves of the head mold over them. I forgot to take a picture of the full setup but the picture below shows the hands done and all the joints safely wrapped in teflon tape to keep the foam out. The big grey epoxy piece in the chest is part of the breathing mechanism- to push in and out. Should have the foamed up hero puppet soon!

Foaming the Brawl Magnet

Had some generous help from Tennessee Reid Norton and Rob Ronning this week- resulting in my first foam latex test casting of Brawl Magnet. This was cast over a simple wire armature with no finger or face articulation- a quick run to test the mold. He will serve as a paint test model and a lighting stand-in when complete. It is so fun to see him in positive form again. I've been posing him out a little and it is getting me really excited to animate again. Brawl Magnet is going to have a ton of personality!

Within a couple of weeks I should have the hero casting with the full-on ball and socket armature! I'll try and shoot a little behind the scenes video of the armature setup and foam process.