This Weekend Was ROUGH, You Guys. Dayna (my New PA) And I Were At The Studio Until One In The Morning

This weekend was ROUGH, you guys. Dayna (my new PA) and I were at the studio until one in the morning last night, so you have my apologies for not posting anything until today. I'm about to head over there again right now, but here are a few highlights from yesterday.

We managed to finish making all the latex bodies (yay!!!), so now it's just a matter of trimming off all the excess, patching the holes, painting the bodies, and sculpting the heads. It's a lot of work, but fortunately most of it can be done in my living room.

Thanks to Dayna for all these pictures!

The anatomy of a puppet.

Mixing the foam latex.

Pouring the latex into the mold.

Trimming the excess latex.

Lots o' puppets, in various states of completion.

Still plugging away at the first models for the film project. Here, you can see rough versions of the "young boy" body (to be used for some schoolkids in the background), a couple of heads (we'll see what works after we cast them in latex, starting tomorrow), and "sketches" of the monsters. The pear-shaped one on the right is really growing on me, but the cat/walrus/Reptar hybrid on the left has got to go. I'll keep fussing until something sticks. It's hard to know exactly what's going to work, since the bodies will be clothed (real fabric) and the monsters will have fur. It's like trying to sculpt the skinned version of something you can't quite picture in the first place.

Thanks for sticking with me while I do the boring parts. After tomorrow, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff to see. :)

Just FYI, she does have a head.

I've been up late sculpting every night, so forgive the lazy photo. I'm halfway through a couple of monsters, some other heads, and assorted other puppets, but they're not cool, "wow, the process is so interesting" works-in-progress...more like "wow, someone should teach Cari how to sculpt." So I'll refine a little more before I post those.

And now...a nap.

Hooray, we're in the studio! I spent the better part of my Sunday listening to the Beatles and coating a headless, eight-year-old boy in Vaseline. See?

Because of all the time I spent unpacking the 8,000 boxes of puppet-making supplies we ordered from Burman, I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked. But I did make the first half of the boy body mold (this week I'll finish the mold and hopefully pour some latex before the weekend), and that's a start.

Here he is after a layer of hydrocal:

And after the first half of the mold is complete:

The west side of the studio, just for kicks:

Catastrophe! I came in this morning to pry apart the little boy mold, and it crumbled in my hands. Well, half of it crumbled. So I rebuilt that half, and while I was waiting for it to dry, I started on the Monster #1 mold. That's this little guy!

He's going to be covered in fur, remember, so he'll actually look really different than this. But this is what he'd look like if he was naked, shaved, and blanched. So helpful.

In other news, the second attempt at the boy mold was successful, so I built a wire armature for the puppet and tomorrow I'll pour and bake the latex on top of it. I'd show you a picture, but I'm frankly so sick of looking at the dude that I couldn't bear it. So just use your imaginations.

Merci started bringing in set pieces and monster fur today, and I'm starting to see the whole thing coming together in my head. It's really exciting. :)

World, meet Mina.

Or some semblance of Mina, anyway. Those aren't her glasses (hers will have eyes on them). And she needs a haircut. But still--!

As of 3:03am, I am officially considering myself done with these puppets. Am I actually done? Technically, no. But the remaining work is all non-essential touch-ups and about ten minutes of construction that I couldn't do tonight. So, for all intents and purposes, done.

Phew.