Saturday, February 03, 2007

So close!

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Pattern piece

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Pinned and trimmed, ready to stitch

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Foam Tack glue by Woodland Scenics is used for all hems. It looks and smells just like Elmer's Glue-all, but it's about twice as thick, and it tacks up instantly. That's why I like it for jobs like this, you don't need to hold things for very long, if at all. And it's very flexible.

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A piece of wire goes in the bottom hem to help control the shirt and make it animatable

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Hey Shelley! Lookie how I did the sleeves! Good idear, huh??! Sleeves are entirely glued on, no stitching involved. Nice and simple, the way I likes it!

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I just have to figure out how to make him a collar and possibly add a few more details and he's ready to rumble. Not perfect.... the seam along the top edge is kind of screwed up, and you can almost see the upper edge of one of the sleeves, oh and making the bottom hem shortened the shirt so much if he bends over at all you can see the shoddy job I did on the back of his orange undershirt. But it looks good at 60 yards on a galloping horse!

10 comments:

Shelley Noble said...

Are you kidding?! --He's HOT! I'd date 'em.

Are you going to add fabric length to the sleeves up inside the puppet next time so when you animate the arms no edges will pop out? You prolly already are 12 steps ahead of me on this, but for the collar, may I suggest looking at one of your shirts, open and flat, to grok the shape to cut the collar pattern? It'll look like \________/ and can be glued down to the top shirt opening and when turned over will fall with real collar points.

Is that foam glue tox or no tox? Sounds really useful.

Shelley Noble said...

Doh, I just noticed the Buster shot to the right, you already know full well how to make your perfect puppet costumes!

I gotta remember to wire all fabric things too.

Shelley Noble said...

ok, I just looked up the Foam Tack Glue, and me wannie because it is indeed non-tox! (Specially formulated non-toxic, water soluble glue will not damage foam.) Cool find! However--I am very concerned by a vendor's admonition that this product be used, and I quote:

"For Adult Use Only."

wtf?

Shelley Noble said...

(um, I will crawl back into the woodwork in a moment) I wanted to ask whether you were set up as an Amazon.com affiliate yet? Because I want to buy "Writing with Pictures" based on your recommendation at right, but would be really happy if you got a $$commish$$ when I bought any of your recs.

Darkmatters said...

Herself said:
"Are you kidding?! --He's HOT! I'd date 'em."

Careful Shelley - remember, the clothes don't make the man! Take a good long look at that mug of his.... are you sure you'd want to even run into this guy in a dark alley?

That's part of what I like about this.... the clothes are bright and kind of toylike, and then the faces almost look like little monsters. It makes for a nice dichotomy (12¢ word of the day).

You gotta find the right balance for wiring stuff up. I wired Buster's jacket too much, with too stiff of a wire (especially in the tie, I can barely bend it!). And keep in mind, especially when sewn into clothes-shapes, the fabric almost stays where you put it to begin with. So you really just need a little bit of wire along the bottom seam. At least that 'seams' right to me.

While not toxic, I'll bet Woodland Scenics doesn't want to get sued because some kid likes to eat their paste! Generally those warning labels are all for litiginous reasons (oooh, another big word!). It's the same stuff as Elmer's, just more concentrated. I'm sure it's probably identical to Tacky Glue or any white craft glue.

Uhhh.... Amazon Affly..... Affish...... Affleck.... huh?

Shelley Noble said...

Thanks, I'll remember bot of those pivotal points.

I understand Amazon.com Affiliates are paid a small but cumulative commission on any of the books Amazon offers sold through your site. It's a program that I don't have the latest details on. But if that is still true, I think you in particular would be an ideal Affiliate because you are well researched and expert in what folks should read for this area of interest.

Face it, you're a hub.

Sven Bonnichsen said...

Gretchin & I have one of those Amazon affliate stores in the works... gl. still needs to populate it with products, so it'll probably be a few more weeks before we go live -- but I've got a massive stopmo section already assembled.

The concept is that for every purchase someone makes at Amazon because of us, we get a small commission. Frankly I could hardly care less about the money -- but there are books that I link to all the time (like Susannah Shaw) -- and this was a really good way to organize a links page (well, for the stuff that you can buy at Amazon).

Mostly, though, I'm using it as an educational opportunity -- a way to talk about the history and how-to of stopmo, and maybe help enthusiastic newbies find resources. ...More about that to come.

=====

Damn, that pup really is coming together! Cool design for the shirt body... For the pups that I've done so far, I've had the front and back be two separate piecess, or started with a "poncho" that then gets glued along the sides.

I'm really curious about how you stitched the shoulders. The way it's pinned, it looks like the fabric would stay sticking up. Did you fold anything under? Or use a special stitch?

(I was just reading the other night about the "Jim Henson stitch", which was invented to hide the seems on the muppets, that had a tendency to show up on film.)

jriggity said...

Hey man,

hes really coming together.
excellent work.

1 almost done.

jriggity

Darkmatters said...

Hey Sven - keep in mind at that point the shirt was inside-out. I just stitched straight across, right above the line of the pins, leaving a gap at the center for the collar area (basically just so the neck can fit in). Then I flip the shirt right-side-out and you can't see it anymore.

Anonymous said...

Ah! Now I see...