Danny Sexbang pt 3 - Body construction!
Merry Christmas readers!
I know you have been patiently waiting to read all about how I made Danny Sexbang's puppet body. It probably was like a cloud over all of your Christmas cheer. Well, never fear - here it is!
I have tried several different body making techniques. The red creature I made a few years ago has my favorite body type. I free-handed a bowling pin shape in foam and it came out really awesome. For people, I usually just do a loop of foam and rely on the clothes to give the body shape.
Like most of the work on this puppet, I was learning a ton from Adam. His puppet body video is phenomenal and I used his template to make Danny's body. When it comes time to make Arin, I will tweak it a little since I want them to have different body shapes, but for now, this template was great. Body creation was pretty easy once I had the template. I cut out the foam and sewed the fabric - pretty much following the tutorial.
I used the same technique to glue my foam together that I always do. Adam always manages to do it without pins, but that is because he is so much more patient than me and can wait until the contact cement is appropriately tacky. I will get that level of patience some day, but for now, pins work just fine. I usually didn't have to worry about neck holes, since I was dealing with either a bowling pin body shape or a giant open tube, but this method is so great. I need to keep following this guy because I can learn so much from him.
Cutting the neck out after gluing is brilliant. Then it is easy to slip the fabric skin over the body and feeling where to cut. Then it was time to make hands. I have my own hand template I have used before, but I wanted to do wire frame hands. Adam's tutorial gave me a great starting point, but I ran into a few challenges in implementation.
I lay my well worn pattern on two layers of fabric. You will see that my pattern is a bit chewed up. That's because there was a period of time when I was less good at sewing, where I was trying to avoid writing on the fabric and sewing around the pattern while it was pinned to the fabric. Looking back, that was really inefficient. I sew the hands together just like that and cut them out later. That is something I had been doing before, but also was an Adam recommendation.
I followed Adam's tutorial and made my wire forms and foam hands. Mistake 1: This is where things started to get tough. I struggled to get the wire bent the way I wanted and the glue was really giving me trouble. I think this is a problem with my tools and supplies. I didn't have the tight tools to really bend the metal the way I wanted. I was also using wire from a previous project which was no where near the same gauge as the metal he used. After fighting with it for a while, the finished hand insert looked great though. There was just one small problem, getting that hand into the fabric sleeve I had made. It just did not fit. The tutorial says something to the effect of "it will fit." Well, it didn't. Again, I blame my tools more than anything, but after popping the seams out of both arms I realized this just wasn't going to work.
I would have to get different wire if I wanted to be able to make this work the way Adam did it. I wasn't really in the mood to go buy more supplies, so I needed to brainstorm a way to make what I had work. The foam was just too thick and the wire was not bending the way I needed it to. I ripped most of the foam off my hands - after 30 minutes of fussing with it. I would have to just use poly fill. The risk there is that the sharp edges of the metal could damage the fabric. I played with my giant wrench for a while and got it pretty smooth, and then felt comfortable. They fit in easily. Incidentally, this was also my first hand stitching I have ever done on a visible part of a finished puppet.I didn't realize how forgiving the fleece is!
Mistake 2: It was at this point I realized that the wire I had was far too bendy to be an actual arm support. It just bent and didn't give me the control I wanted. I needed to use something else. I found a long wooden dowel I had that I thought might work. I tried pre-drilling a hole in the center of the dowel. It gave me great control of the arm, but if I tried to twist the dowel (to give the puppet's wrist movement), the wire just spun in its hole and didn't work. I needed a way to give it more support. I eventually figured that if i drilled a hole in the side of the dowel and bent it upward, it gave the arm the support it needed. The only issue was that made it really difficult to glue in place. I settled on black duct tape to hold it down. It isn't the most professional looking solution. However, I have to be honest, I really like the fact that the arm bars are thick. I think that it gives the puppet a really unique look. I think it is the same reason I really like the yarn hair. It just adds to the overall stylized look of the puppet.
The final step was to hand stitch the arm to the body and get to working on the clothes! I think the work on the clothes really ties the overall look together! Look out for that next week!
Keep making cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
I know you have been patiently waiting to read all about how I made Danny Sexbang's puppet body. It probably was like a cloud over all of your Christmas cheer. Well, never fear - here it is!I have tried several different body making techniques. The red creature I made a few years ago has my favorite body type. I free-handed a bowling pin shape in foam and it came out really awesome. For people, I usually just do a loop of foam and rely on the clothes to give the body shape.
Like most of the work on this puppet, I was learning a ton from Adam. His puppet body video is phenomenal and I used his template to make Danny's body. When it comes time to make Arin, I will tweak it a little since I want them to have different body shapes, but for now, this template was great. Body creation was pretty easy once I had the template. I cut out the foam and sewed the fabric - pretty much following the tutorial. |
| pictured: impatience |
Cutting the neck out after gluing is brilliant. Then it is easy to slip the fabric skin over the body and feeling where to cut. Then it was time to make hands. I have my own hand template I have used before, but I wanted to do wire frame hands. Adam's tutorial gave me a great starting point, but I ran into a few challenges in implementation. 
I lay my well worn pattern on two layers of fabric. You will see that my pattern is a bit chewed up. That's because there was a period of time when I was less good at sewing, where I was trying to avoid writing on the fabric and sewing around the pattern while it was pinned to the fabric. Looking back, that was really inefficient. I sew the hands together just like that and cut them out later. That is something I had been doing before, but also was an Adam recommendation.
I followed Adam's tutorial and made my wire forms and foam hands. Mistake 1: This is where things started to get tough. I struggled to get the wire bent the way I wanted and the glue was really giving me trouble. I think this is a problem with my tools and supplies. I didn't have the tight tools to really bend the metal the way I wanted. I was also using wire from a previous project which was no where near the same gauge as the metal he used. After fighting with it for a while, the finished hand insert looked great though. There was just one small problem, getting that hand into the fabric sleeve I had made. It just did not fit. The tutorial says something to the effect of "it will fit." Well, it didn't. Again, I blame my tools more than anything, but after popping the seams out of both arms I realized this just wasn't going to work.
I would have to get different wire if I wanted to be able to make this work the way Adam did it. I wasn't really in the mood to go buy more supplies, so I needed to brainstorm a way to make what I had work. The foam was just too thick and the wire was not bending the way I needed it to. I ripped most of the foam off my hands - after 30 minutes of fussing with it. I would have to just use poly fill. The risk there is that the sharp edges of the metal could damage the fabric. I played with my giant wrench for a while and got it pretty smooth, and then felt comfortable. They fit in easily. Incidentally, this was also my first hand stitching I have ever done on a visible part of a finished puppet.I didn't realize how forgiving the fleece is!
Mistake 2: It was at this point I realized that the wire I had was far too bendy to be an actual arm support. It just bent and didn't give me the control I wanted. I needed to use something else. I found a long wooden dowel I had that I thought might work. I tried pre-drilling a hole in the center of the dowel. It gave me great control of the arm, but if I tried to twist the dowel (to give the puppet's wrist movement), the wire just spun in its hole and didn't work. I needed a way to give it more support. I eventually figured that if i drilled a hole in the side of the dowel and bent it upward, it gave the arm the support it needed. The only issue was that made it really difficult to glue in place. I settled on black duct tape to hold it down. It isn't the most professional looking solution. However, I have to be honest, I really like the fact that the arm bars are thick. I think that it gives the puppet a really unique look. I think it is the same reason I really like the yarn hair. It just adds to the overall stylized look of the puppet. The final step was to hand stitch the arm to the body and get to working on the clothes! I think the work on the clothes really ties the overall look together! Look out for that next week!
Keep making cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime
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