For this blog post on Practice based research I will be focusing on the Puppet-animation work that I have been doing and the techniques I have been honing and learning on the Stop-motion pathway class led by Haemin Ko.
Puppet Making
Puppet-making with wire armatures was something that I had some previous experience of so I went in already feeling fairly confident about the techniques we would be using, but I also found that I gained some really important knowledge from being able to consult experienced animators including Joseph Wallace, who was leading the puppet making workshop, as well as recent CSM graduate Maria Lourenço.
We began the workshop by designing puppet characters that we planned to make with quick sketches that would inform our puppet-making.
I learned some new techniques in puppet fabrication from Joseph that I hadn’t utilised previously. One of these is the technique of using pieces of shaped balsa wood to create sections of a puppet that can essentially function as a pelvis, ribcage, skull or other structural element. I found this really useful going forward as the puppet that I created ended up being on a larger scale than I had ever worked on before, adding these balsa wood elements to the armature provided a lot more structural integrity to the puppet which allowed me to position and animate the puppet more easily once we had moved on to the animation phase.
A new skill that I learned in this workshop was felting, something that I had never used in puppet-making before. I wanted my puppet character, which is a bear-like creature, to have a hair or fur covering to it’s skin. Previously I would have achieved this using fabric and sewing some kind of covering, but Maria encourage me to try felting directly onto my puppet and I think that the result is much more realistic and gives a much better effect. I also really enjoyed the process of felting and would definitely like to do more of this technique for future puppet projects.
I did run into some challenges as I was making my puppet. One of these was that quite late in the process I had a small disaster and my puppet’s “spine”, the twisted wire portion of the armature that made up my puppet’s back, snapped in half from too much wear. This was a particular challenge as I had to re-open the felt and foam that made up my puppet’s flesh to get to the wire armature and fix it. Maria and Ko were able to help and give me advice on how to fix this section by drilling a new hole in the pelvis and using epoxy glue to re-attach the spine.
This setback taught me that in the future it would be better to use thicker wire, or more strands of wire, which would mean the section could stand more movement without wearing out. I could also possibly make this section easily replaceable if I was worried about this being a problem, although in this area of the puppet this might not be realistic. Replaceable sections are more often used for hands, feet or heads of puppets as these can be changed quickly and easily is parts break or wear out.
Overall I found that I learned a great deal throughout this process. I found that these workshops and experiments taught me not only new practical skills and knowledge, but also helped me realise what areas of animation I am interested and what I enjoy as an artist and filmmaker. I think moving forward I would definitely like to take time to focus more on puppet-animation and especially gain some more experience in a wide variety of puppet-making techniques.
These are photos and a video from the process of animating with my puppet. I would love to talk more about the animation process itself but have unfortunately am over my word count.