Progress on Sand Troll

I have been working on my Sand Troll and have finished gluing him all together. I had a lot of trouble with the face because of all the joins around the neck and mouth, but he has worked out fine in the end. Today I have painted him, and in the picture below you can see the foam underneath the acrylic paint.

Here is two pictures of him half painted. 

Here is the finished painted product.

 I've sprinkled a little bit of sand to make it look more realistic.

Now I can start making his grassy hair and cover him in seaweed and pebbles.

Trip to the Beach

This sunday I went to Lytham's beach and collected a big bag of sand and some tiny shells and pebbles. Along with other stuff like twigs and seaweed. I took some photos so I could see what the layout is like is real life for when making my set.

Set Scale

As well as the puppets I am getting ready to make my set, which include a miniature full lighthouse, big scale of lighthouse base, big scale of lighthouse top and cave.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse from Above

As for the small model it will be made out polystyrene and painted over. For the bottom it will be made out bendy ply and painted, with polystyrene rocks. The top will be a bit tricker. The glass will be made out of clear perspex and the railing will be made out of plastic tubes pieced together with snap on tees. As for the light, it will be fixed and I will be able to pivot a cylinder with a cut out window to animate the lighthouse. 

Cave from Above

The cave will be made of polystyrene and any extra out of paper mache. The back wall at the top will be removable so i can film a shot from both sides, back wall and doorway.

Dad Puppet

My third and final character is the Dad. He will be made similar to Sophie, except he won't need replacement faces because of his beard. Next week I will start making his wire armature.

Sophie Puppet

I have started planning making the little girl Sophie's puppet. I have decided that I'm going to use a ball and socket armature for her instead of wire frame, which I have emailed to a company to get it made.

As for the face I'm going to make replacement faces with different mouth movements so I can animate her talking. So first I've done a plastercine mould of her face with no mouth, and then I will make a mould and cast loads of faces and score/add mouths to each one.

As for everything else I will make her hair out of brown roving wool with fine wire mesh underneath. The wellington boots, hands and legs will be made out of rubber latex.

Sand Troll mouth

In my animation the Sand Troll doesn't speak, but does have expressions like smiling, which means it has to have a moveable mouth. I have found a tutorial online on showing how to make a puppet head.

Welcome Back

We are now in to the year 2012 and I back working on my 3 minute Sand Troll animation.

Last year I did a design for all my three characters and started of making the Sand Troll. I made the armature out of twisted wire.

So I've continued on my Sand Troll this week and have started to finish the armature and add the foam.

As you can see I have got foam and wrapped it around the wire and glued it together with evo-stick. After that I have shaped the foam with sharp scissors, rounding off the edges.