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.
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.
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.
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.
This is Derek Ortega, our animation assistant, assembling armatures for the limbs.
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.
Cool's glasses and mustache were sculpted to fit his head, and were made out of magic sculpt epoxy clay.
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.
Here's a shot of all the characters assembled and ready to be filmed!
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!