Started the puppet last night by building the armature. I’m making a wire armature from strands of 16 gauge Utility Wire ($4.48 at Lowe’s.) 2 or 3 strands of this wire are twisted together to make pieces, using a bench vice and a power drill to turn it. Apparently, it’s a good idea to shoot for 3-4 twists per inch for the pieces.

The arms, neck and head are each made from 2 strands twisted together. The chest, legs and feet are 3 strands twisted together. The 3 strands are pretty tough to bend. Since they aren’t going to be supporting clay, but rather foam, I probably should have used 2 strands. I’ll be swearing about that when I animate. Also, my needle-nose pliers seemed to be taking small chips out of the wire as I was manipulating it. I fear that this will weaken the wire and shorten its life. I should look into rubber-lined pliers or something for handling the wire.

After I had the wire shaped, I fastened it to a scrap piece of wood using machine screws. To create “bones,” I used “FastSteel” epoxy putty, ($2.47, Lowe’s.) The putty is a tube of two differently-colored putty materials. You cut a slice from the tube of putty and then knead it together until there is no marbling. You then have about 5 minutes to shape it before it hardens. Within a little while, it’s completely solid. While molding it, I dipped my fingers in water to keep the material from sticking to my fingers and then to smooth out the “bones.” One mistake I made here, I think, was in making the hip bone too large. Later when I played with bending the legs a bit, the hip started to crack. Poor fella will probably have a nasty limp now.

I carved a head from blue insulation styrofoam. Since the head will be clay, the blue foam takes up mass so that the final head isn’t too heavy. The hands will be clay, too. Not sure about the feet yet.

This morning, I began covering the armature in foam. I had one of those foam egg-crate mattress pads that I wasn’t using that will provide the foam for probably a hundred puppets. I cut up pieces and built up the foam body using Liquid Nails adhesive ($2.27, Lowe’s). Then I used small sewing scissors to trim the body into shape. I’m still working away on this. The sculpt doesn’t need to be perfect because I’m going to cover the body in clothing, anyway. Sculpting in foam mattress pad with scissors and liquid nails is a little bit messy right now, but I’m a messy art-and-crafter.

(I learned about this stuff from reading posts on this website and watching this video.)

It’s off to Omaha with Jen, visiting some of her friends there. I’m looking forward to Omaha steaks and meeting Jen’s friends and living amongst lots of corn for a few days. I’ll have pictures eventually.