Buzzfeed Commercial Shoot BTS 02 - PuppetssteemCreated with Sketch.

in #animation7 years ago (edited)

Hey Steemit! This is another post about the puppets from the buzzfeed commercial. I wanted to go a little more in-depth on the process, and give the community a look into how they're made. Here's a link to the first post if you missed it: https://steemit.com/animation/@tysonjames/buzzfeed-commercial-shoot-bts-01-puppets

Here's a video showcasing a random night during the middle stage of production -- just us trying to embrace the chaos. There were materials thrown about everywhere, no organization at all, just frantically throwing puppets together towards the end of it. haha.

Step One: The sculpt

The sculpting phase involved Drayson (co-animation director) and myself translating the 2d designs into 3d using Chavant clay (medium NSP). This process took roughly a week or so to get all of the designs sculpted and ready for casting. These images are of Cool Cucumber being worked on.

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Step Two: Mold Making

Mold making generally involves me sitting down and figuring out how the actual mold is going to function: Where are the air vents going to go? How is the mold going to sit? How is the mold going to be opened? There are a lot of technical aspects that have to be considered during this phase. This image is of Cool Cucumber's body while I was assembling the mold.

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Step Three: Casting

Here are several images of the casted puppets. They are cast from two-part liquid plastic and cure within an hour. You can see that the "plugs" for cool's body are embedded within the mold for casting. This allows for the limbs to be plugged into the body later on.

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Step Four: Armature/Limbs

The limbs are made up of armature wire that are wrapped together using dental floss to keep them grouped. They will eventually be wrapped with a foam sports wrap to give them shape, before painting.

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This is Derek Ortega, our animation assistant, assembling armatures for the limbs.

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Step Five: Painting

Painting is done using an airbrush for the base colors and fine brushes for detail work. Most everything is painted with acrylics.

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Cool's glasses and mustache were sculpted to fit his head, and were made out of magic sculpt epoxy clay.

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Step Six: Detailing

Detailing usually involves adding the little extra's that the viewer might not be noticed unless they weren't there, such as highlights on the hair, or dry brushing details onto the clothing...things that give a puppet the feeling that they live in an actual world.

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Here's a shot of all the characters assembled and ready to be filmed!

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That pretty much sums up my puppet process on this production. What do you think? Was this too long? Too boring? Too technical? I would appreciate some feedback in the comments, as it will help me tailer the content into a more engaging and interesting format.

Thanks for peepin!

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Hi bro these are awesome I love to see your process!

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Oh whoa, thank you so much for the info! That's a huge tip and I really appreciate that. There's so much on steemit that is completely foreign to me, but I'm learning quickly thanks to the great community here!

No problem I started powering up 100% when I first started here in July but it was such a small difference that I didn't even notice. The current price creates a huge bonus that shouldn't be missed.

ha okay yeah that answered my question! I love this, I've always wondered how animators got the puppets to look so clean even throughout the movement, but knowing what materials were involved definitely make a whole lot of sense.

Can't wait to see the video! The characters are super cute.

Yeah clay isn't used very often because it's kind of an impractical material. Lot's of re-sculpting throughout the process because it's so maleable.

Wow unbelievable! So much work. Infinite details to reach high level of professional perfection.

Thank you! I appreciate it.

I love seeing how you made the moulds and cast the figures - so much prep work! Awesome!

Thank you! I appreciate it!

This is a great post! It's not too long at all, and it is really interesting! The visuals are super cool! It's crazy to see how many puppets need to be made for one character! I am really looking forward to your future posts! You have a natural knack for blogging!

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, I really appreciate it. I don't do much blogging so I'm glad these posts haven't been overbearing.

And yeah! Depending on how many animators are on a scene, you might need a bunch of multiples to make sure everyone can be animating at the same time with the same characters. They also break a lot so it's good to have backups. haha

Thank you thank you thank you for this post! I wanted to try clay puppet animation but was scared by the process of making puppet with armature

It takes a lot of trial and error to get it right, but having a solid armature is key for good animation!

Ha, ha! Threw me way back to my childhood! This is why I fell in love with molding, puppets, animation, etc... I'm a PBS kid and will always be. I'm glad you posted this really helped a negative day into a better night. Will be following.

Oh thank you, that's great to hear! I have a ton of BTS stuff from past and present productions that I'll be trying to share with people, so keep an eye out!

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This is amazing! Doing stop-motion puppets is on my list of things I want to do, nobody asked me to make one yet, but my dream was to work for Aardman or Laika

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