Stop-Motion Puppet Fabricator
BUGS: OMNI COSMIC
* Art direction by Ava Baughn
Responsible for body mold, polycarbonate armature, silicone injection cast, and goggle fabrication excluding sculpt. Body sculpt by Ava Baughn & Sarah Hatfield. Costume and head fabrication by Ava Baughn. Goggle sculpt by Sarah Hatfield.
Armatures:
Two puppets of Bugs were made to allow for multiple stages of animation to go on at once. The first puppets armature was made of wire and Pro-Poxy, and the second was made of wire and polycarbonate. This was my first go at making a polycarbonate armature and it is now my go to preference for making them. It was important that Bugs armatures had a sitting and back rigging port because she is sitting in a chair for a majority of the film.
Pro-Poxy: Bugs first armature was made up of 1/8" armature wire and Pro-Poxy. For the pelvis, three 10-24 coupling nuts were threaded and 5-minute epoxied together for the sitting and side rigging ports. The chest had one 10-24 coupling nut for a back rigging port. With Bugs chest being wider, wire was bent and shaped to resemble a ribcage. This would help with grabbing and posing the puppet for animation. Pro-Poxy was applied to cover all of the hardware and 5-minute epoxy. The hands were made up of two pieces of 24 gauge floral wire that were secured together in the palm area with Pro-Poxy. An aluminum tube was used for connecting the hands to the rest of the body.
Polycarbonate: Bugs second armature was made up of 1/8" armature wire and polycarbonate. Before building the armature, I first made a mechanical drawing to map out where all of the drill holes and trenches would be. Similar to the first armature, 10-24 rigging ports were drilled and hand tapped for both sides of the hips, sitting and the back. Holes were drilled and hand-tapped for connecting the front and back pieces with 6-32 screws. Trenches were dremeled so that the wire could run through each part. The hands were made and attached the same way as the first armature.
Silicone Cast:
Bugs body was injected with GI 1100 silicone and colored with Smooth-On Silicone Pigment. For silicone colors, I color-matched paint samples for the body, pant, and boot color. I was responsible for all silicone mixing and color matching, as well as injecting both bodies.
Paint-Ins: Silicone paint-ins for the pants and shoes were done using a small detail brush. Ultra Fast Catalyst (UFC) was mixed into the silicone allowing it to set up before injecting the body silicone.
Inject: Before injecting, the body silicone was degassed to remove any air bubbles. For injecting, one person held the injection tube and the other injected silicone with a syringe. Silicone was injected until the heels and fingers vented.
Open: After curing for roughly 16 hours, the mold was opened and the body cast removed. The body was cleaned and left to rest for 24 hours before proceeding with cleanup and necessary silicone repairs.
Clean-Up: After 24 hours of resting, the seams were trimmed and buffed. Silicone touchups to the pants and shoes were made to hide any body color showing through. Rigging ports were opened and she was then handed off to have her shirt sewn on.
Arm Cast: In Omni Cosmic, there is a shot where we just see Bugs arm. Using the body cast, we were not able to pose the arm in camera how we wanted. A solution was casting just an arm for the shot. I did this by making an armature that was just the arm with extra wire for rigging. I blocked off the area where I did not want the silicone to pass through with Jolly King. I used UFC to reduce the curing time to about an hour. The arm was cleaned and buffed for animation.