Robot construction Update

Problematic legs

First I cut some 1 3/4" tubes (12 X) from a length of plumbers waste pipe, once cut the raw edges had to be sanded, I then covered each section with aluminium ducting tape (this part was ok)

Next I wanted to make foam spacer joining pieces to go between the tube sections so I cut all the disc's from a 10mmm foam exercise mat (all 40 of them) this I intended to cover with black tape but it had the desired effect of either distorting the disc shapes, not sitting flat or coming unstuck

(this stage didn't go well and was scraped).

Rethink

I decided to make a mould and cast the joints from black silicon (this is working very well) 

the first step was making the joint out of sculpy, once baked and cool I made a central line through where the joint will be then I made a two part mould from fine casting plaster,

moulding with the silicon has proved straight forward

see image below.

Robot body

I have had to bolt the hips to the legs (for constructional reasons) and the hip section to the body to make the waist swivel.
shoulder caps have been made from ping pong balls
and dome head from empty pop bottle (doing my bit for recycling)
see image below.

Twins....................Robot X2

I have been busy making a start by building my robot puppets.

I started by making strong ball & socket armatures for the core of the legs and then constructed the bodys from styrofoam sheets and mdf, the puppets feel relatively light up till now so thats a good thing.

                                            Robot body parts

                                                  Hips & Legs

More updates coming soon.

Old set parts down from the loft

Over last weekend I pulled some of the original set pieces down from the loft, all in all they had fared well over the years.
The table needs one of the legs gluing back also the small kettle handle needs a bit of remedial work doing (more gluing).
I placed a full size cutout of the main character in amongst the set pieces to try for size (looks good to me).

I will still need to do a bit of finalising to the decorating here and there.

Table, chair and props

Bedside cabinet

Bed with pillow and armatured duvet

Gas Cooker with eye level grill

Head & Shoulders

My first big test with sculpey 

On previous times using either fimo or sculpey (oven-bake-clay) it has been restricted to very minor small projects and what I had learnt from using the oven bake clay was that I would need a support structure for my head & shoulder sculpt.

I could have used a wire type armature under the sculpt but chose instead to used shaped pieces of styrofoam joined with cocktail sticks.

In the pictures below the sculpt is in 3 stages Armature, first sculpt with key marks (like a golf ball) and then the front & side finished views.

Note I used 10mm white sprayed beads.

Armature

First sculpt & bake

Last sculpt (front) finished & baked

Last sculpt (side) finished & baked

In my original drawing of the character I had him with a tuff of hair sticking up at the back of his head but after several trial attempts that all looked like some sort of flower on the back of his head, I came to the executive decision and ditched the tuff of hair.

Character designs

Been doing a bit of work on updating some of the character designs.

 

 

Break down of  Robot & Dreamer ready for building armatures.

Update over due!

Foley sound recording started well but I got a little side tracked after reading Tom Brierton's book 'Stop-Motion Armature Machining' which was bought for my birthday, so I decided to invest in some new machinery.

So the heavy box arrived.....one hernia later I managed to get the lathe out of the box and on to my bench

The lathe needs a fair bit of setting up but I'm up for the job!

 Also purchased steel from Ebay ready for armature building.

I have had a tub of small discarded telescopic ball/arm ends for some time these should come in handy!

I believe these ball ends are stainless but soft enough to drill...these I hope to silver solder making a stronger armature than any previous armatures I have built.

Hard day's work on the RP

Been busy today printing and testing the Rapid Prototype 
machine.

Sorry it's not about my film but it is significent in the world of Stop Motion films.