Monday, September 21, 2009

5 of 8

5 of 8

5 of my 8 actors now dressed to kill.

Duckbutt

Getting ready for his pants.

Tom is a Rocker

Tom is a rocker. He still just needs his wristbands. I've coated all the formerly sticky rubber arms with a clear coat of the new No-Tac Acrylic Adhesive from Monstermakers (well... new to me, not new to Monstermakers). It'll be nice when they no longer stick to each other and pull chunks of paint off when I pry them apart.

Oh, I should mention... one little trick I figured out... when you get gobs of glue spreading out all over a jacket or something you can scrape it off after it's dried with an X-Acto knife. If you kind of try scraping in different directions you'll suddenly find the right one and it will almost magically lift off. The scraping can also put some nice wear on the cloth... I don't like that bright, too-clean kind of thing - I want some clothes that look like old favorites.

24 comments:

Mike said...

Rock on Tom! That transfer turned out nice.

As well as the hoodie. I attempted making a hoodie once...after a couple attempts I just gave up. Getting clothes just right with glue isn't easy! Still easier than sewing though.

They all look great - you have 8 puppets?

UbaTuber said...

Lookin' GOOOOOOD!!! Great progress, bro! Tonic is my favorite, he looks like a creepy Dr. Who from Hell....

Darkmatters said...

Hey Mike... I stopped worrying about getting clothes just right, or even right at all... I'm happy as long as it kind of looks like clothes, in some crazy world or something, ya know? Just some cloth in a sort of shirtlike guise, and some tubes wrapped around the legs is all it takes.

And thanks Jeffrey!!! Tonic appreciates the compliment... he raised a glass to you and the Lady, and he says he wants to be the little Tater Tot's godfather. I wouldn't let him do it though....

Darkmatters said...

Oh, I should mention... one little trick I figured out... when you get gobs of glue spreading out all over a jacket or something you can scrape it off after it's dried with an X-Acto knife. If you kind of try scraping in different directions you'll suddenly find the right one and it will almost magically lift off. The scraping can also put some nice wear on the cloth... I don't like that bright, too-clean kind of thing - I want some clothes that look like old favorites.

Jessica Koppe said...

This T-shirt is AWESOME!

This all comes together very, very, very nice...

Shelley Noble said...

They are all perfect, Mike. Perfect in style. Perfect in matching the face's style. You've crafted the right look for each. It's absolutely brilliant.

That scull t-shirt is... well, perfect!

tonychauzer said...

Speedy Gonzales over here! I really should take a page from this blog and get to work myself. Great stuff as always Mike!

StopmoNick said...

Rock on, Tommy!

Yaz said...

Wow, 5 puppets are ready!! Great!! Last time I check out your blog couple of days ago, you were working on Hoppy. Now there are 5 perfect! puppets are ready to be animated. I cant wait to see you animate these especially under that lighting setup you explained.

Darkmatters said...

Well, most of these puppets were already dressed or partly dressed. I made Tom's shirt over a year ago.. he only needed pants, and now with my spray-it-and-slap-it-on technique pants go really fast. Veronica was already fully dressed, and Cosmo there behind the bar... he had his shirt already, and he really doesn'r even need pants since he'll be standing behind the bar all the time. I probably shouldn't have said that... now people will think about him not wearing pants the whole time they;re watching the movie.....

Darkmatters said...

You know what really struck me about that top picture, finally seeing them together and fully dressed like that? There's a unified color palette that I wasn't aware of creating. Not only that, and not only is Hoppy's hoodie the brightest part of the scene, but it's also a concentration and intensification of the color of the walls. It draws attention to him, where it belongs.

The other thing I noticed looking at that picture... I don't like the color of his cap.

Emily said...

They look great!! Really impressed with the style, suits the head sculpts really well - can't wait to see the whole gang together :)

Hal Weaver said...

That looks very cool. Something you might try to keep the latex from sticking to itself is to powder it with baby or talc after it has dried. Something I learned when I was playing around with make-up stuff.

OK HW

Darkmatters said...

Thanks Em!!

Da Weave - I do powder them. Somewhere around here I have a box of "no-color" makeup powder I bought for the purpose but it's lost in the depths of my basement mess, so Im back to the old corn starch. With the Pro-Adhesive from Monstermakers (for PAX paint) it still ended up sticky. But now the No-Tac adhesive dries with no tack at all!!! I still powder it to get rid of the shine though.

jriggity said...

Fantastic!

you have a really cool look here and all of the characters work excellently together.

This progress you are making is very inspiring.

jriggity

Yaz said...

Mike, the color palette is really looking great. I like how all earthly colors blended very well in that picture. Hoppy's cap.. yes, I think cap's color is too closed to his skin color. It might have looked better with a darker shade of the same color. Maybe??

Darkmatters said...

Thanks Justin!!!

Yaz, I painted it blue, complement to orange, which I think looks excellent! Pics coming soon.

mefull said...

Dang it Mike you are really getting the hang of doing the clothing. They look really great and work perfect for the puppet design, I especially like the hoodie outfit. Great stuff.

Yaz said...

Oh ok, great! Looking forward to seeing the pics.

bRYEnd_of_the_schtick said...

(^ now to the intrinsic delectations
(^ of decide who moves how.
(^ body chararacter posturing and who moves slower than the light footed one . who throws bottles and who prefers to drink with a pinky up.

(^ sigh if only my mind would slow down to a pace my body could keep up with.

Darkmatters said...

Absolutely right Prosser! Looking at them now I'm conjuring little puppet personalities and intricate relationships/dysfunctions for them. Oh, and I just finished dressing the last puppet!!! Well, a few accessories still needed here and there, and some touching-up etc. But basically my entire cast is now dressed!

And now I see I need to get started defining a whole new lighting scheme for them. Something about the slight shininess of the heads and the extremes of dark and light on the faces....

Shelley Noble said...

Tom... Let me guess... Tom Collins?

Ashlee said...

They look awesome! They really do; I enjoyed reading this and looking at the pictures. Its amazing :) This reminds me of the movie "9" lol..

*Jellybean*

Have a good one :)

Eliandra said...

perfeito!! a deinição mais apropriada!!parabéns