Week 17

Comparing the Armatures

Armature I have borrowed from my course:

What is good: 

• Great to learn how such armature works and is assembled including tightening the joints, K&S and tie-downs.
• To get the feel for well-working joints - can compare with wire armatures for a range of motion etc. 

Problems: 

• Some joints have been secured using Loctite glue, others have not. 
• This makes the armature no longer adjustable to the size of my puppet. 
• I still need to find K&S that will fit the existing neck and hand ends.
• How do you build a puppet on an armature without damaging it in any way and then be able to disassemble the puppet? 

Armature I have bought at MAF:

What is good:

• The number of parts in the Creature kit.
• Leaflet with the sizes of each part allowing to re-order exactly what is needed for a future project. 

Problems:

• The kit does not include the special Loctite glue = extra cost
• It is expensive, I paid £90 with a discount. I definitely cannot use such armature for all of my puppets in this film as I would get way beyond the budget. So I am going to save it for a production that will definitely benefit from a long-lasting puppet - such as the animation in Sign Language that I am planning to do after I finish this course. 
• Last year, the puppet I was animating with made by Zham broke in its arms before the film was finished. I have heard of wire armatures breaking and needing replacement parts. But I think this applies to a much longer film than my 3 minutes short. So I need to stop being afraid of using a wire armature. 
• The puppet size is influenced by the size of the available parts.

Speaking of sizes of the puppets, I have decided these by searching the average height of a person depending on gender and age and put it into scale 1:6.

I remembered a version of the Cinderella story that I have watched thinking this could be the perfect inspiration for the opening scene and rough bedroom layout. So shown it to Ava. Starting from 2nd minute.