| Project Buster |
| Buster as a Stop Motion Model (W.I.P.) |
The Sculpture was made using Super
Sculpey. Which for me has been difficult to
sculpt with. I typically use Roma clay and the
sculpey seems so soft and easily marred or
damaged. I am getting a little more
accustomed to it and have not given up,
however it is so different then oil based clays.
Here are a few pictures of his progress so
far. I will be posting more as he goes. I also
decided to sculpt him without clothes. The
clothes will give a more tactile feeling if I
make them from material. It will also give me
experience in making clothing on such a
small scale. For the fur I had gone back and
forth over using flocking or trying to sculpt it
on. After much internal debate I decided to
go with sculpting the fur as this would prevent
the fur from "crawling" during animation. We
shall see if my decision was the right one.
LOL.
March 23rd 2006
The mold has been made and more pictures
added. As I had mentioned I sculpted the
model with Super Sculpey and it took allot of
getting used to. The biggest learning curve
came in when the sculpt was ready to be
sealed and molded. I always seal my sculpts
with Krylon Crystal Clear, so proceeded to do
so with this one. After over an hour of
attempting to dry the sculpt it was still
sticky/tacky. Resolved that now it was do or
die I decided to go forward with the molding
process and began building the WED clay
dividing wall to separate the halves. The
tackiness caused the water based WED clay
to stick to the sculpture and made getting a
clean dividing line a nightmare. I pressed
onward. Once I had built a containing wall
(first time i tried this method) I was ready to
pour the plaster. I brushed in the splash coat
as normal. Once the splash coat was firmed I
began adding the burlap reinforcement layer
then finished with the top layer. The major
concern here was the temperature of the
curing Ultra-cal molding material may cause
the super sculpey to cure as well. This
locking the sculpture into the mold. The
solution I came up with was to place the
section in front of a fan to keep air circulating
around the mold to hopefully prevent any cure
of the Super Sculpey. Once the first half was
set I repeated the process for the second
half. Once the mold halves were cured, I did
one half a day for two days, I gently tapped
the side with a rubber mallet and the mold
came open beautifully! The most amazing
part is that the sculpture came out almost
totally intact.
March 24th, 2006
Finished the armature last night and will be
posting pictures soon. Will be running foam
this weekend for the first foam latex Buster
puppet.
April 1st, 2006
I have been working on Buster this past
week. Ran the foam latex and finally
discovered why my foam runs were not
working the way they should. The curing
agent has settled into the bottom of the bottle.
I shook and stirred like crazy and the Buster
foam is workable but still slow to respond. I
painted him with Acrylic paints over a
Pros-aide base. The Buster as he appears
now is pictured to the right. The armature is
created with twisted aluminum wire with the
hip and shoulder blocks made of brass. The
arms and legs are held in place with set
screws allowing for replacement of a single
limb if needed. Molds and armatures just
before being immersed in foam latex are
shown below. Next task- Creating clothes for
Buster!! LOL.
Sculpey. Which for me has been difficult to
sculpt with. I typically use Roma clay and the
sculpey seems so soft and easily marred or
damaged. I am getting a little more
accustomed to it and have not given up,
however it is so different then oil based clays.
Here are a few pictures of his progress so
far. I will be posting more as he goes. I also
decided to sculpt him without clothes. The
clothes will give a more tactile feeling if I
make them from material. It will also give me
experience in making clothing on such a
small scale. For the fur I had gone back and
forth over using flocking or trying to sculpt it
on. After much internal debate I decided to
go with sculpting the fur as this would prevent
the fur from "crawling" during animation. We
shall see if my decision was the right one.
LOL.
March 23rd 2006
The mold has been made and more pictures
added. As I had mentioned I sculpted the
model with Super Sculpey and it took allot of
getting used to. The biggest learning curve
came in when the sculpt was ready to be
sealed and molded. I always seal my sculpts
with Krylon Crystal Clear, so proceeded to do
so with this one. After over an hour of
attempting to dry the sculpt it was still
sticky/tacky. Resolved that now it was do or
die I decided to go forward with the molding
process and began building the WED clay
dividing wall to separate the halves. The
tackiness caused the water based WED clay
to stick to the sculpture and made getting a
clean dividing line a nightmare. I pressed
onward. Once I had built a containing wall
(first time i tried this method) I was ready to
pour the plaster. I brushed in the splash coat
as normal. Once the splash coat was firmed I
began adding the burlap reinforcement layer
then finished with the top layer. The major
concern here was the temperature of the
curing Ultra-cal molding material may cause
the super sculpey to cure as well. This
locking the sculpture into the mold. The
solution I came up with was to place the
section in front of a fan to keep air circulating
around the mold to hopefully prevent any cure
of the Super Sculpey. Once the first half was
set I repeated the process for the second
half. Once the mold halves were cured, I did
one half a day for two days, I gently tapped
the side with a rubber mallet and the mold
came open beautifully! The most amazing
part is that the sculpture came out almost
totally intact.
March 24th, 2006
Finished the armature last night and will be
posting pictures soon. Will be running foam
this weekend for the first foam latex Buster
puppet.
April 1st, 2006
I have been working on Buster this past
week. Ran the foam latex and finally
discovered why my foam runs were not
working the way they should. The curing
agent has settled into the bottom of the bottle.
I shook and stirred like crazy and the Buster
foam is workable but still slow to respond. I
painted him with Acrylic paints over a
Pros-aide base. The Buster as he appears
now is pictured to the right. The armature is
created with twisted aluminum wire with the
hip and shoulder blocks made of brass. The
arms and legs are held in place with set
screws allowing for replacement of a single
limb if needed. Molds and armatures just
before being immersed in foam latex are
shown below. Next task- Creating clothes for
Buster!! LOL.
Buster in
progress.
Still alot to do
on the face
and fur. He
will be
approximately
6.25" tall.
progress.
Still alot to do
on the face
and fur. He
will be
approximately
6.25" tall.
| Completed and sealed sculpt. |
| Mid line dividing wall in place and ready for plaster |
| Sculpture as it emerged from the mold. completed mold in back ground. |
| Buster-First paint test |
| Buster in the workshop |
This site will be under constant construction and new content will be added
regularly. Thank you for stopping by and please let me know what you think.
regularly. Thank you for stopping by and please let me know what you think.
Wilbur-To the right. This is an
unpainted
foam latex model. His eyes are
the
Bearings I used to make the eye-
socket. They will be replaced
with eyes
with an Iris and pupil. His eyelids
will
be added separate as well, to
facilitate
blinking actions.
unpainted
foam latex model. His eyes are
the
Bearings I used to make the eye-
socket. They will be replaced
with eyes
with an Iris and pupil. His eyelids
will
be added separate as well, to
facilitate
blinking actions.
| Buster ready for the molding process |
These pages will follow
Buster thourgh the phases
of becoming an animation
model and on into his
wacky adventures.
Originally the project was to
be about Wilbur (picture
right) but i decided to make
it about Buster, My
Ventriloquist partner, and
his wacky ideas and plans.
This will also allow me to
inter-cut between shorts
with the actual puppet and I
talking about what is
happening or so on. I am
anxious to see how this will
turn out. Please keep
watching as we progress.
Buster thourgh the phases
of becoming an animation
model and on into his
wacky adventures.
Originally the project was to
be about Wilbur (picture
right) but i decided to make
it about Buster, My
Ventriloquist partner, and
his wacky ideas and plans.
This will also allow me to
inter-cut between shorts
with the actual puppet and I
talking about what is
happening or so on. I am
anxious to see how this will
turn out. Please keep
watching as we progress.