And That's A Wrap! I Can't Even Believe It. I Mean...we're Done? Seriously?

And that's a wrap! I can't even believe it. I mean...we're done? Seriously?

It's amazing how much better we got as we went along. By the time we were done, I was almost tempted to go back and reshoot the first scenes.

Almost.

The film has a completion deadline of December 1, which means the final product will be done in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait to see it! I also can't wait to finally get some sleep, which would be a nice change of pace at this point.

Here's Mina, waiting in the clovers for her big scene.

Thanks for all the moral support, everyone. And thanks especially to Dayna and Sean, who actually got their hands dirty with me on a couple of occasions. It made a huge difference!

Super Sculpey, Laguna clay, GM foam latex, armature wire, PAX paint, and Hydrocal, ~100 hours

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.

Phew, what a day.

I finished painting Marion (she's fully sighted now, thank you very much) and actually managed to make one latex puppet today. YES. I KNOW. I was thrilled, too. It's far from finished--there's all the patching and trimming and fur-gluing and skin-painting to do--but at least I've proven that my molds can actually create puppets. So there's that.

To illustrate how time-consuming this process is (3.5 hours, just to do the part shown below), I've made a little photoseries:

After the figure is sculpted, the mold made and dusted with mold release, and the latex mixed (according to the particular warmth and humidity of your studio), you can finally pour the mix.

When both sides are full and the armature is in place, take a deep breath and squish the two sides together before it hardens/spills out the side.

Let it bake for 2.5 hours, then pry it apart with a crowbar or a screwdriver. Or, if you're hardcore like me, your bare hands. Before waiting for it to cool. (Ouch.)

Gently peel the latex off the mold. Swatting your friend's hands away when she tries to help is optional.

Trim off the excess latex with a pair of mustache scissors. Yes, that's really what those are. Yes, the latex fumes made that a lot funnier than it should have been.

And then you're done! Haha, just kidding. You're never done. But you do have something resembling the photo up at the top. Voila!

Another big day. This time, I recruited my good friend Sean to perform slave labor help me out around the studio and keep me from going stir-crazy. Thanks, Sean!

Today, we made latex casts of two boys and one girl, leaving just one boy, three girls, and a monster to do tomorrow. It sounds like a lot, but I'm getting exponentially faster every day. It took me two weeks to make my first mold, and now I can do one or two a day. So I still have high hopes that I can finish all the baking tomorrow.

I also finished sculpting Monster #2 and made the first side of the mold, so I'll finish that up tomorrow, too. Sean measured out fourteen little balls of Sculpey for the heads I sculpt during the week, and I trimmed and patched the first little boy and Monster #1. I'm still terrified that something is going to crack, explode, deflate, dissolve, or otherwise break, but I think I'll be able to put those fears to rest tomorrow when I completely finish the first puppet. If I can do it once, I'll trust myself to do it eight more times, so fingers crossed.

Thanks for all the encouragement as I stumble through this. I know the final film is going to be just gorgeous.

I admit, these posts are getting fewer and farther between. But I haven't abandoned you entirely!

Here's a frog prince (or is he a baron?), modeled after this statue in Philadelphia. I'm quite a fan of his jaunty crown, personally.

Here is in in profile:

Super Sculpey, ~60 min.

Tumblr, meet Mina. Or, what will eventually become Mina. Maybe.

I've been sculpting, sketching, plotting, and measuring, and today I made what will probably become the body shape for Mina (the main character) and probably some of her female classmates, too. She's headless because we're animating the faces by making a series of different heads which we'll pop on and off between shots. She's got a little baby fat to help make her look young, and slightly exaggerated hands so we can slip armature wire in there to animate her fingers once she's cast in latex. Here's the back view:

I actually sculpted her muscles first, and when she looked too old, I draped a layer of skin and fat over the top to make her less defined. Keep in mind that she's, uh, not going to be naked in the film; she'll be dressed in real fabric, so her body is just to give the fabric the right drape.

(Oh, and here's some explanation if you have no idea what all this is about.) More to follow!