Fly Cook
This page is dedicated to a fabrication project for a stop motion puppet. Here's how I made my Fly Cook!
Character designs for my fry cookin' bird man.
Armature drawings for the character are made to scale. This character is about 12 inches tall.
His armature in the process of being made. Lined up making it as close to the drawing as possible.
The body of this character is sculpted on top of the finished armature.
When the sculpt is finished a clay up is made. The clay covers only the back half of the character and plaster is poured over the top half. When the plaster is dry, flip it over and remove the clay. The back of the body is now exposed and plaster is poured over it.
When the second batch of plaster dries, I pry the two halves apart and remove the sculpted body. This leaves to molds ready to pour silicon into.
The head and beak are separate from the body so that they can be animated. Instead of plaster, the head and beak sculpt molds are made of silicon. Plastic is poured into these molds to create the head and beak.
A second armature is made to fit in the mold. However, this armature is for motion testing and a third armature that will be inside of the final character will be made.
This is a rough test I did practicing with my second armature. Just making sure it's capable of making the movements I want and just practice animating.
he third armature is complete! This will go inside the final version of my character! He has a ball of balsa wood around his pelvis and green foam around his chest to fill up space so the silicon won't be so thick. His arms and legs are painted so the color of the wire will be less noticeable through the skin.
A thin coat of orange silicon is painted into the legs of the mold.
The armature is placed inside of the mold and tightly sealed up. A tube for injecting the silicon is placed at the end of the neck.
His tail mold is made of silicon, like the head and beak. More silicon is poured into the mold and both sides are squished together until it sets.
The body is out! A little trimming a touch-ups and he'll be ready to go.
Wow! He's all put together now. Head and tail attached as well as a little outfit. He's got an animate-able beak and eyebrows as well as removable eyes.
A rough first pass at animating my bird man. The armature animates nicely!
