Team Smithereen is a new puppet project that I did the character designs and co-created with Dan Clark and Don Asher. A hapless stunt team these four characters: Whoop, Thrill Kat, Brave Little Frances and Stunt Pig have all the bravery and none of the brains to try and perform some of the most outrageous stunts. They always end up getting blown up smashed, crashed and creamed.
We have an amazing team working on the show, check out the TS blog for more info pics and behind the scenes video.
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Some of the same processes that I use to sculpt toys goes into the sculpt for a puppet.
Always with consideration to the end product being able to perform. I learned quite a bit about sculpting puppets early on in my special effects days. I sculpted puppet characters for various shops like the Chiodo Brothers the Jim Henson Company, and our very own productions.
Always I use a water based or oil based clay. The end piece will be molded so the puppet can be made out of a more malleable material like silicone, foam rubber, or latex.
I made the test puppets out of a very stretchy silicone it was the consistency of a wacky wall walker. The puppets for the actual shoot were made by the talented team from Monster FX.
2 comments:
Hi. The very stretchy silicone you talk about (like wacky wall walker rubber) how/where did you get/make that? Cheers.
Hey there Philip, The Silicone is from Silpak http://www.silpak.com/
You have to experiment with the amount of plastisizer you add to the batch. I would make a batch, keep very detailed notes so if it turned out right I could do it again.
Good luck!
D
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