What's a Man Without His Head?

Head

So I begun creating my head by first sculpting it out of Sculpey, gotta love that Sculpey. The image above shows the next process I did which was to spray my character blue with aerosol spray paint. Why blue I hear you ask? Why not! If you can then you should, don't do in animation what you can do in live action I say.

The final head from all angles is shown above the dirt marks are from wear and tear as these photos were taken after my final animation was completed.

Mouth Shapes

The mouth shapes above are my initial mouths however after doing a lip sync test and speaking to my tutors we both agreed that they were to square and there wasn't enough variation in size. So I went away and created the mouth shapes you see below which are softer and have more variety.

As Sloth would say "HEEEEEY YOU GUUUUUYS!!!" 

Clothes

Trousers 

 I made the trousers from a material I got from a fabric shop. I wrapped my model's legs in cling film then masking tape (shown on the right). I then cut the Cling film/masking tape into shapes and I had the layout for my trousers I just had to cut these shapes out of my material and sew them together.

I made small buttons out of Black Sculpey. Rolling the Sculpey into tiny balls then flattening them with a flat sculpting tool, I then punched little holes into them with a needle.

The belt buckle! This was a lucky find which I had laying around in a box of old nitbits and instantly knew that my art teacher would have to wear it in some form or another. I painted over the gold with acrylic paint to try and give it a brassy effect and keep the colour within the spectrum of my piece. It was to gold and shinny for my liking originally.

 The belt was made form a piece of soft leather which was cut twice the width I wanted then folded and glue back on itself.  This gives it a lovely curved edge all round and slightly raises it of the trousers just that little bit.

All excess material was folded over and glued to the padding to help keep the trousers in place when animating.

 

Shirt 

 Masking tape and cling film were also used in helping me create my shirt, as shown on the image above. The material for my shirt is from a handkerchief I found in a charity shop and instantly wanted my character to be wearing it! Always keep an eye out for things like this you never know when they might come in use.  

 

 The buttons on the shirt were made in exactly the same process to those on the trousers, only with white Sculpey instead of black.

 The collar was made separate to the shirt and fits tightly around my characters head, I found the collar very hard to create as my character has no neck it is just instant head from the shoulders. Making the collar separate from the shirt meant it moved a lot while I was animating so I decided to eventually glue it to the head.

The pocket on the shirt is a piece of fabric which had been cut out and glued on (Above). The shirt also had to make room for the rig in my characters back so a tiny slit was made to allow it to poke out.

Once again all excess material was folded over and glued to the padding to help keep the shirt in place when animating.

Padding

Crotch

The padding for the crotch was made from a hard but light material used to insulate fireplaces. This material is very easy to cut and sand down, allowing you to create you desired shape to pad out a model. I created the crotch in two parts and then stuck them together with my armature in between using Uhu.

 I left a gap in the back of the crotch's padding as this is where a rigging point was found (shown on the left) I also had to do the same for a rigging point found on the side. (shown below) Although both of these rigging points were not used in creating my final animation I believe you can never be to safe, plan for the worst so you are prepared.

Final padded crotch below.  

Chest

The padding for the chest was made from the same material as the crotch and also in two parts which where then sealed together around my armature using Uhu.

My armature laying in the back sections of my padding.

The middle of my armature, what would be the belly, was padded out with blue foam. Common in househole sofas and available at most home furniture shops, this foam is softer and allows for more squash.

Legs

The legs where padded out using a foam I had laying around at home. The foam was most likely from a box that a present came in, it was already in straight segments it was just a case of making the foam more of a cylinder shape as appose to a rectangular prism. Most foams found in packaging always come in handy some keep hold of them! 

Latex Casting

Shoes

I begun the latex casting by firstly bulking out the armatures of my feet with styrofoam as shown above. This helped give me more of a solid object to animate with once the latex was placed around the foam. I began applying latex to my mould starting with the brown bulk of the shoe, I kept within the lines painting in two layers. I then painted the black into the mould to give the impression of the shoes sole once again two layers where applied. Finally I painted the green in to the mould, at this stage I could use the green mixture to make the latex as thick as I wanted. The final outcome can be seen below.  

Arms and Hands

A similar process was taken on my arms and hands, I bulked out the main section of the arm with styrofoam and wrapped the fingers with plumbing tape so that the armatures would sit in the cast tightly. As shown below

A closer look at how I bulked
out the hands and the arms.  Click the images.

The armatures were then pushed into my mould, which had been painted with several layers of latex.

Closer inspection of the hands and the arm in the cast . Click the images. the K&S was used as a fixture point to keep the arm in place. I then painted latex around the split line of the two sides of the cast and pressed them together with a clamp.

My final hands with one half of the cast removed.

Unfortunately the right arms split line did not fuse together. I concluded that it was a result of two things I did wrong; firstly  not enough latex was applied around the seem and secondly the styrofoam used to bulk out the arm was to thick, resulting in the mess you see below. I cast a second arm which came out fine.

I trimmed away and excess latex with a pair of tiny scissors.

The final hands front and back.