Danny Sexbang pt 1 - Making the head!

Hey Readers,

Doesn't look like much yet - but it will be great!

So I ran into a lot of issues with the pumpkin head from my last blog. The frustration got to me and I needed to step away from the project to think. Mostly I think about who thought to make cotton candy for the first time, but that isn't really relevant to this post.

I was watching YouTube, a common activity when trying to get my mind off of cotton candy creation. I found this awesome GameGrumps animated video where the animator made the two grumps into cartoon puppets. Inspiration struck! I could make them into REAL puppets. I closed the video with a new spring in my step and a distraction from the simply baffling decision to spin sugar in a giant wheel and serve it on paper.

I have mentioned that I really wanted to try my new mouthplate idea that I learned from watching Adam's tutorial. This was the first successful implementation of that idea and this is easily the most professional and polished puppet head I have made.

I was using a pinhead pattern for this puppet. Dan is frequently depicted in Game Grumps animated videos as having a longer face than his co-host Arin. He is also usually seen with a huge mop of hair on his head. The thought was that if I used the pinhead puppet shape, that I would not need to use as much yarn to create the hair, and could rely on the foam shape to give his hair more volume. I can explain why that was wrong in my blog post about the hair process, but for now you can just know that I was definitely wrong.

Puppet chock full of pins. Don't play with it yet.

Either way, making a longer face is going to make the hair I am trying to create look better in the long run, and it will help me clearly differentiate his face from his co-host - should I ever make an Arin puppet. I really want to, but I am learning I should really focus on one project at a time, and should avoid unwelcome thoughts of cotton candy.

Beyond the planning stages and into the making of the puppet: every puppet I make starts with a foam base. I use half inch foam and cut out two of my patterns. Then comes the pinning and gluing phase. I use contact cement and straight pins to hold everything in place. If I didn't say so before - wait a minute before sticking things together after applying contact cement. It works better if it is given a second to get tacky. When I say "works better," I really mean "works," since nothing will stick if you rush this step.

I always think it looks a little scary at the pin stage. While it is drying, I cut out the same shape in my pale blue fabric. I chose pale blue because whenever given a choice, Dan goes with blue in video games. Again, if I do make an Arin, I wanted them to be different colors, and I wanted to have those colors have meaning. Since Arin typically picks pink, this would help further separate them as different individuals.

This wasn't obvious

I am completely self taught on the sewing machine, so occasionally I learn or discover something that I then realize is incredibly obvious. The learning this time was that if I trace my pattern and then cut a seam allowance, I can then sew along my pattern lines to be really exact. I would always cut two patterns out at once, and one wouldn't have pencil marks on it, but the other would and so I would be left to guess for half the work. I really should take a class so I can learn some of those basics in a way that isn't trial by error. This super obvious discovery made for a super clean pattern.

Most puppet makers will try to avoid using the same pattern for the face as the foam. This is to avoid seams on the face. Other puppet makers will use the Jim Henson stitch (essentially a ladder stitch that can be used to hide seams) to avoid that central stitch mark. I am sure I will eventually want to become better at the Henson stitch and will try to avoid seam lines. However, that isn't what I am trying to learn here. Not to mention, I want this puppet to have super clear indicators that it is a puppet. The seam lines make me feel like it is a kids toy, more than a professional puppet. While I do want it to be the best puppet I can make, I want it to feel like a toy more than a prop. That probably isn't making a lot of sense right now, but when you see the clothing I am making, hopefully I will sound less crazy. Lastly, the hair and nose I plan for the face are going to hide most of the seam anyway, so there is not a lot of reason to learn a new stitching technique for this guy.

mouth plate with two fingers

I already talked about making my mouth plate in my last post, this time I discovered that while the awl was great at poking holes in the plastic mouth plate base, a needle and pliers worked just as well and faster. Of course, if I did it long enough my needle would start to bend, but I wasn't doing enough sewing to make it matter to me. The bent needle will just be what I use for this part puppet building until it eventually breaks. I didn't make as many finger holes as I did last time. This wasn't just because it took forever, but also because I don't really feel like individual fingers are necessary. I added hot glue on top of the stitches on the inside and tape over the thread on the outside to give it more security.

It is just so much cleaner than my old ways!

I used to use felt for my mouth insides, but I saw velvet on sale at the fabric store (and heard from Adam is was better), so I am going to give it a shot. I don't have anything that I can mark the velvet with. Chalk would be great, but So would a million dollars - don’t have that either. Instead I taped the mouth plate to my fabric and cut it out. I wanted to sew the fabric in, so I left a little seam allowance and made the bottom part a little more pointed. I didn't sew the point in, but made the top and bottom easily recognizable and helped me find the center. This made it easy to sew the black fabric right to the blue fleece outer material. I hadn't had a lot of experience doing this, but with my new knowledge of seam allowances, it came together really easily. I fit tested it around my foam head several times since I don’t trust my skills. I was really nervous that I would accidentally screw up this part! Wow that's a dumb statement. Who intentionally screws something up? Whatever.

 I was ready to start sticking this head together. I started by gluing the mouth plate to the black fabric. As this was my first real attempt, I hot glued primarily along the outside. In the future, I would probably also use some tackier glue in the center to hold the velvet down there. The final product has some loose black fabric, but to be honest, you can't really see it and its so much cleaner than gluing felt after the head is assembled.


This is also a pretty significant deviation from the tutorial I watched. It had me gluing the mouth plate to the foam first. This decision made some challenges for me later, but I will probably always do it this way moving forward. It felt like I had a lot of control over exactly where the mouth should go, and that made for a cleaner look. I moved my way around the edge super slowly to make sure it was well affixed (obviously make sure you are gluing your mouth together while your fabric is inside out, otherwise everything is ruined.

Pictured: anxiety

Then came what I knew would be tricky: gluing the mouth plate to the foam and flipping the fabric right-side out. Once the fabric is glued to something rigid, you risk ripping your fabric as you attempt to flip it right-side out. Especially since the mouth is so large and the neck hole I would be using was comparatively tiny. Gluing the mouth plate to the foam was easy, but I did have some anxiety that the flipping was not going to work.

The tutorial had me doing a "wet fit." This involves using contact cement that is not tacky yet and applying it to the mouth plate that is already glued to the foam head. Then the fabric is able to slip around a lot before it dries. I don't like wet fitting because the last time I tried it the glue seaped through my mouth fabric and made a real mess, not to mention it didn't offer me nearly as much control as this method did. The foam was very bendy, so even though it was really tough getting the mouth through the neck, I was able to make it happen and the finished head was so clean!

Head is ready for customs!

I ran into a little trouble with this method when it came time to sew the neck on. I couldn't just flip it inside out and sew it in the machine like I would have liked - since it was all glued to a foam head. I didn't think I would be able to do my flipping right-side thing if I did the neck first, so I had to just risk it. If I was better at hand sewing I wouldn't worry about it, but I still managed to make it work. The mouth looks amazing, the blue overlaps into the plate just enough and it came out looking really solid. I now have a great base to start customizing to make him look more like Dan! You see that yarn next to the head, that's going to be hair soon!

I am going to go get ready for bed and hope that intrusive cotton candy thoughts don't come back.

Make something cool and leave a comment!

Until next time,
JoshPrime