Archive for February, 2010

Nailing down an eye building process

Feb 20

Posted by admintg in Project - Horror Comedy (2010), Puppets | Comments off

I decided that the foam based iris and pupil were the best solution for the current set of puppets. I have been searching for an way to cut smooth circles in the foam all week. I check in the scrap booking sections of several stores. The hole punches that they offer that are larger than 1/4 inch will not accept a piece of craft foam. They opening is only large enough for paper.

Today at Hobby Lobby, I found a perfect solution to cut holes of 3/4″, 1/2″, 0.28″ and 0.18″ in size. It is the FoamWerks foam board hole drill. It cuts through the foam beautifully. I settled on the 1/2″ hole for the iris, and .18″ hole for the pupil.

FoamWerks Hole Saw

Now that I had my sizes locked down I could start mass production.

Since I wanted to counter sink the iris and pupil into the eye, the first step was to build a jig that could hold the eyeball securely while I drilled. To do this I drilled a 1″ hole in a piece of scrap wood. I then screwed that wood to a larger board that I clamped to my drill press. The table of the drill press was put to a steep angle so that the circle would be cut into what will be the front of the eyeball.

Eyeball Jig

Then the eyeball is dropped in.

Eyeball in jig

I carefully held the eyeball in place while slowly drilling into it with a 1/2″ brad point bit.

Drilling into eyeball

I drill into the eye about 1/8″ of an inch. At this point the eyes are ready for being spray painted white. While the eyes are drying I went on to cut out the pupil and iris. I laid out a basic grid with the iris colored foam. Then I used the FoamWerks hole drill to drill out the pupil hole from the iris.

Cutting out the pupil hole

Once all of the pupil holes were cut out I switched to the 1/2″ hole drill, and cut out the iris from the piece of foam.

Removing the pupil from drill

Once I had all 16 of the iris’s cut, I switched to the black foam and started cutting out the pupils

Cutting pupils

I repeated the process and created 16 blue iris/pupil combinations.

Then the final step was to hot glue the pupil and iris onto the eyeball.

Eyeball with iris and pupil

The next step will be to add the eye lid and lashes.

Tags: Drill press, puppet

And the eyes have it.

Feb 14

Posted by admintg in Puppets | Comments off

Well I have made four male test eyes so far. All eyes have puppet fleece for the eye lid, and black felt for the eye lashes.

Four Eyes

Attempt 1

This eye has a felt circle glued onto the eyeball. The black pupil is colored in with a Sharpie. I don’t like the shade of blue, or the thickness of the felt.

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

This eye is colored directly onto the eyeball with blue and black Sharpie. The Sharpie is too reflective to work.

Attempt 2

Attempt 3

This eye is colored with acrylic paints directly onto the eyeball. If I can get the painting to be cleaner this could work out. The black is a little too reflective, so I will need more of a matte finish.

Attempt 3

Attempt 4

This eye uses foam for they iris and the pupil. To avoid the problems that I found with the thickness of the felt in Attempt 1 I used a drill to countersink the foam. With more practice, I think this could be a workable solution.

Attempt 4

Tags: puppet

Finally a free weekend

Feb 13

Posted by admintg in Puppets, Videography | Comments off

The last two weekends didn’t end up as I had planned. I ended up having to work most of both of them. But this weekend looks good for building. Lots to do.

Puppet Adam is ready for eyes and hair (as are Maxwell, and Mabel). Puppet David has his body and head sewn. Arms and legs will be next.

So the plan is to get the arms and legs all done tonight. Then focus on Eyes, nose, hair for all four completed puppets tomorrow.

Also in the works today is to build a Puppet Stage for the kids school. Need the construction to be light and easy to set up and take down, but strong enough that the kids don’t knock it over.

Unfortunately left my video camera at work or I would try to capture some Depth of Field videos, comparing the 220 grit ground glass vs. the 5 micron ground glass. Oh well that will have to wait.

Tags: puppet