The wireframe armature is done, you can follow the process bellow!. First of let me tell you that this is a much cheaper way of making a armature compared to contructing a more complex one or buying a kit, the negative part with those are that they will be worn out and snap if you use it often. So basicly those can't last a longer film, but my first puppets held for a 9-min film and are still intact, so i can't really tell how long they'll hold. Anyhow, these valkyria puppets will not be used for any longer animation so its a perfect choice now especially since im saving up budget for a bigger project.
Starting of with the Wireframe Armature!, you will need aluminium wire of different thickness (depending on puppet scale). Here you can see i did each part to fit the templete scetch. I then put stiff wire on the shoulders and hips, and wired it togheter with thin wire. Last i sealed it all togheter with a hot glue gun and made sure the glue sticks into the "wire netting". Make sure to make all limbs and the neck a bit longer than the scetch tells you, you will need extra for fitting hands, feet and its smart to chose how long bit the neck needs after you construct the head (see later in the blog).
For the feet you will need to have quite a bit wire lenght saved up on the legs, so that you can curve them around the bolts and temporarily fit them with hot glue before securing them with epoxy. This construction is for double-jointed feet. Alternatively you can have just a bolt in the toes, it should probably be enough but i chosed to have two. The armature already stands properly even before epoxy and sculpt!.
The hands are tricky but doable. First of i curled two rows of thin wire togheter (a very long bit), then i swisted it around the top of the arm bit (the palm) and then i shaped out fingers, so each finger is consisting of 4 wires twisted togheter. Once i have the whole hand done i twist the remaining bit around the palm aswell. i then take even thinner wire and form up a netting around the hand centre by twisting it around the hand. Finally i secure the shape with hot glue forced into the wire netting.
To secure joints to be bendible only where they are supposed to, i took stiff wire and wired it onto the sections that should be un-bendble using thin wire, then secured them with glue aswell. The hot glue is good because its thick and bendible, but secures it in place.
Finaly i sculpted epoxy putty around the bolts. First of put the screw into the bolt so that no epoxy gets into the hole where the screw later should go, this way you secure its function. This is two-component epoxy that gets really hard once it's hardened, it takes roughly 5 mins. A good idea is to shape it at least roughly the shape that the feet/shoes will have later. The armature still stands nicely without help!
The finished armature put on the scetch, i also added rough dimensions for those who want to make one. This armature is roughly 1/5 scale or 1/4 scale, or something between (stop motion puppets dont need to have a exact scale though, but its nice to comapre).
Thats all for now folks, i'll be back soon with the Foam body sculpture of alicia!
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