Stop Motion Tutorial: Making an Armature Michael Parks English English

Stop Motion Tutorial: Making an ArmatureYouTube↗ IA↗(long shot)
Film & Animation 594.5K views 10.7K likes 132 dislikes 06 Jun 2012

Michael Parks 50.6K subscribers N/A YouTube↗

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The best kind of armature for a stop-motion puppet is a ball-and-socket armature,

and I've had good success with this A.S. standard armature kit. This one ran

$120.50, and there are others that run more, like this one for $233.50 with shoulders

that can get some shrugging in there. That's an excellent way to bring your character even more to life.

But if your budget is more in the $15 range, then this tutorial is for you,

because we're going to make this armature.

This is a wire based armature

using Epoxy putty to hold it together and to give it bones.

So this is what you're shopping for. Your main thing here is

the armature wire and you do want to get real

aluminum armature wire. Don't be tempted by the

wire that you're seeing in the hardware store, like steel wire, because it can be next to impossible to animate.

Epoxy putty, all sorts of different kinds. Not epoxy glue.

It needs to be the the compound that you mix together to make a sort of a clay material that then sets up

And armature parts. For this one, I'm going to use 6-32 size. If you're making a bigger armature,

10-24s are good. the idea is this sort of kit here where you're going to get t-nuts.

And this is going to go into the foot. You're getting washers and

a wing nut as as well as the the screws themselves. And also consider what you're going to do for the head.

I'm going to make it out of a wooden dowel to start with. This can then have Super Sculpey built up on top,

or soft plasticine clay. So from your character design, you want to make this symmetrical drawing of your character.

It needs to be exactly the same on both sides. Especially the arms.

And from this, you're going to build the wire right on top of it. Now I don't sew, so this guy's actually,

his size is based on the size of the costume

I'm going to fit him into. This method will work for quadrupeds or any sort of scale. Shorter legs, taller legs.

First thing you do is just kind of map out where

the the armature is going to run. You're going to have

(Draw both front and side for quadrupeds and bipeds with tales.)

shoulders up there. The arm is going to come down into the wrist.

the main armature is just going to come down into the wrist. You can do fingers as well.

Coming up to the top of the head. And then you're going to have

hips. This will come down into

the legs. They curve there. And come down

into the toes. I'm going to plot out where the knees will be.

And what we're doing here is, we're going to work out where the bones are going to end up,

leaving about half an inch. For a character this size, about half an inch in there. We're going to just kind of plan where the

tie downs are going to go. The t-nut. I'm going to put one in the heel, and then one in the toes.

I'll put the the collar bone there.

And he'll have elbows there.

I'll put a bone there.

So just gonna start laying out

the armature wire starting at the foot, and I'm just overshooting

because this is more sort of working out the length more than precisely

how this is going to go first.

Running from head to toe.

Now since I'm going to put this

end of the wire is actually just going to come up to there.

(If building up a foil head, run the wire into the head, creating a loop.)

I'm just going to make another one.

Now, some instructions for making a stop-motion armature is

to twist the wire really tight like this for the whole armature.

I'm not doing that here because this kind of weakens the wire. It will break sooner.

This is good for if there's not going to be

bones holding it together, like for a tail.

(Four to six wires for the legs.)

Now add more wire to the legs.

I'm going to double it up again. I'm going to twist just enough to hold it together..

I'm even just going to add yet another

wire for the legs.

(Too many wires can make it difficult to animate.)

So that's five. That's going to be fine. And then, for the arms I'm going to overshoot because I can always trim that down.

And I'll work out where this is all going to lie.

I've got two for the arms and that is not enough.

Two wires on the arms is almost

guaranteed to break, even just during the the puppet-making stage. What I'm going to do is,

just to get in place I'm going to undo a

of the armature right up to where the arm would come in,

wrap that back around. So now the arms are at least at the right height.

It's okay that it's sliding around because I'm going to fix that with the epoxy putty.

Okay, so now I've got the wire part of this done.

Okay again, the putty that you want is a mixture of two

clay-like compounds. You don't want to mix this whole thing because you'll never be able to sculpt everything

with quality fast enough before this sets up.

So I'm just gonna take a certain amount and

mix it thoroughly. Here's where the biggest mistake in

wire armature making I've seen happen, is not mixing this enough. Some people

will stop at this point, and you can see that

it's not mixed properly or fully and then it's soft.

And that's not doing you any good, especially in the feet. You want to work this until all the marbling is gone.

Alright, so I'm going to start right here in the middle. It's already starting to warm up.

So I'm going to make the first arm bone

with enough wire exposed at the shoulder to be able to get some

arm and shoulder animation.

Continuing with the arm, and making the bones as thin as I can.

At least half an inch of wire exposed

for the Elbow. There's enough room in there to bend.

Now I'm making a piece for the hip. There's no rhyme or reason to the color here. The three color

epoxy putty is all they had at the hardware store today.

Continuing with the leg as

I want to give some space in there for the knee. to bend at the knee without bending every single time in the exact

same spot. So for the feet, this is where we put in the t-Nuts.

And make one for the heel and one for the toes. if you're making a smaller puppet,

and you can only get one of these in here, you want it on the toes

so that the the foot can bend at the toes during a walk. You work the

t-nut into the heel

using the wire to bend it into place.

I'm going to do the same with the toe.

use pliers to get it to tighten into place. So since we're going to put epoxy putty over

this whole thing, we don't want putty getting into the threads of the t-nut.

So put a little piece of tape on there. A little piece of tape helps to hold the the t nut in place.

Fit that over the toe here, and the thing you want to do is have some of that epoxy putty coming all the way

around to the bottom. That holds it in place.

Pressing down on it a bit to flatten out the bottom.

And then working this in for the heel. So now I've got a tie down at the heel

and the foot. There's exposed wire on both ends. Then of course

we do the same on the other side. For the fingers, I am twisting up the wire. A very thin armature wire here.

I'm going to use the

hand guide. We'll start with the thumb and work out from there the length of each finger.

I'm not going to use

Epoxy on the end here.

So if this is going to be clay, the clay will hold the hands together, or rubber latex.

And so there it is, the full armature. I'm using a wooden dowel for the head which will glue

into place with Epoxy Glue or Superglue.

And he's ready to be turned into a puppet.

And here's where the different methods can be used.

Of course if you use clay, just sculpt the clay right onto the puppet. You want to keep it lightweight

so we can walk.

So it can step up on one foot. This puppet here is solid clay, and

since it's kept under a pound, it can

support its own weight with one foot up and can make a nice walk. If you're doing a stop-motion

style puppet, you have to use cotton batting cut into strips.

This is cotton batting for quilt-making. this is pre wrap.

And if your puppet is small enough, you can just start with pre wrap, and that's fine. I like to,

if it's a bigger one,

use the cotton batting to start the build up part to give it some bulk.

Lightweight bulk.

I made a roll here of just half width.

And then slowly wrap it around. If you go too quick, it's going to bunch up and you're going to get just

bunched up parts. You can actually kind of sculpt as you go with this,

making it tighter where you want it to be thinner.

I'm going to use some rubber cement.

For the body, I'm using full width pre wrap.

And if I want to have a little more of a tummy to him,

I can add some cotton batting there.

Okay, so once you get your puppet done,

Yeah, this one's not done

But we're gonna move ahead anyway to show you how to do the tie down. The screw goes through the platform,

into the bottom of the foot. Make sure you get it screwed in really tight

so there's no give no play.

And then the final test of a good armature is: can it stand-up on one foot so that it can walk?

so as I mentioned, I don't sew.

So for this ball-And-socket armature which is being padded with this cotton cotton batting, I am using a Ken doll outfit.

And putting it on is mainly a matter of, just as you would with a doll.

Getting all the Cotton batting to fill in all available space. It's got to be tight.

Any loose-fitting clothing is going to chatter when you animate because the clothing will be moving as you move the body.

And also, as you're going adding additional

padding to fill in the anatomy that you want. In this case,

He's got something of a tummy. I use the pre-wrap on the ankles and wrists to keep everything in place.

And for the eyes. This is Sculpey with a hole poked in the middle, baked and

painted. And then these are doll eyes with holes cut into the white part which can then be covered in clay. and the head,

this is a clay head.

And whatever method you're using for the head, it's got to be on tight. There can't be any give. No chatter.

It's got to move just as you want every frame. And of course, when you're done, be sure to have the boss inspects your work. inspect your work.

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