Sunday, September 10, 2006

Day 8 - halfway point and my first completed armature

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Tom says hi. He has three wires in his spine and each leg, but he thinks he might need another one. Since there are no bones there the wire is weaker. I was originally planning to put bones in his legs, but geez... they're just so short!! I had planned to test out my new hybrid method, which involves leaving the wires untwisted only where the bones will lay... then adding the bones using the thread-wrapping/Kwikweld method as before (only the thread doesn't extend past the ends of the bone), and then I was going to twist in between bones. That way the straight wire makes a nice trough for the bone to lay in, keeping things neat and compact, and twisting tightens everything down and does away with... um... that complicated problem that I can't seem to explain very well. ;)

I think I'll go ahead and put tiny little bones in Huck's legs when I make him later tonight. Huck is Tom's friend and the tallest of the puppets.

2 comments:

Shelley Noble said...

Awesome! Your armatures look so technically superior, wrought from experience, than mine. Hi Tom!

Darkmatters said...

Heh... technical... well, sorta. Painstaking as all hell to make.... damn straight! And they're butt ugly too. But the important thing is how well they work inside the puppets, and I think (aside from the heavy bobbly head thing) these will be my best yet. I hope anyway! Man, I had no idea how much more work would be involved just because I'm using these aluminum chest blocks! I think back to how quick and easy it was to make Tonic (the little dwarfish lookin' fell on the left with the epoxy putty chest)... and I know he's rock solid from stem to stern. I'm a little leery about all those kwickweld joints on these other guys. I;m thinking the weakest points on them are gonna be where the wires are epoxied into those little pices of tubing... basically I'm completley depending on the kwikweld to hold firm against all the stresses of animation. And I think it's the twisting motions that're gonna be the worst.

Y'know... Buster is just over a year old now (he hasn't seen much animation though)... and nothing has broken on him yet. In fact I have yet to have any breakage of an Almaloy armature (oh... but then come to think of it, I guess Buster was my first alma-ture, and the only one till now!).