Progress

This week progress has been slow due to my underestimation of how long the puppet making process is. But I have accomplished to make a plaster mold out of my prototype and now waiting for the plaster to dry so I can move on to the next step of injecting rubber latex into the mold. 

Plaster.

He's in there.

I also try out the vacuum form mold. I laid out a wire amature inside in hope that I can move the puppet after filling the mold with expanding foam. 

Weighing down the backing of the mold while the foam is expanding.

The result came out interesting. There are some defects such as his hands and feet are not completely filled and the exterior skin of the foam seem to be very easily peel off. This is another type of puppet and I'm not too sure how will or can use him in my film but his does have interesting texture and extremely flexible to move.

Lastly it's time to actually animate. In this test I use a mock up puppet as I play with some lighting and practice on this little guy very fluid movement, trying to capture his timid personality. 

 

The set up.

And here is the test with a clay mock up puppet. I really try to play with the light set up this time and also camera movement (cheated by moving the stage instead, haha). Overall from this test I know that the amature for the puppet works well and the aesthetic, which is Czech animation influenced, really appeals to me.