Props Continued! The gun!

In terms of detail and parts to put together this has been a relatively complex exercise, and this week went very slowly in terms of working out what order to do things in and how to fit them together!

 

 

So to follow on from last session - here are all the separate pieces that I finished last time! We have the main body of the back, the main front barrel, the handle and trigger piece, the front 'fin' that goes on the front barrel, and the uncut but measured out front barrel.

 

 

The first order of business was to start getting the main pieces connected! For the front barrel it was a simple matter of cutting a groove into the body of it to slot the trigger piece into. For the main body mass it was slightly more complicated and I had to use the hot wire tool to cut out a thin strip to slot the trigger piece into, making sure it lined up with the barrel without making the groove too long and have it fall apart. There is a smaller section that fits onto the front barrel and slots into the trigger bit, I have made it from blue foam and cut it from a cylindrical piece using the hot wire tool, but that will be one of the last pieces I put on so I haven't got a photo of it yet.

 

As the next pieces to make I decided to concentrate on the back panels, working from the inside of the gun out. As there are some very fine details to be put on at the end, I decided to use the yellow foam as it is more dense and you can create cleaner cuts and lines with it.

 

Above are the finished panels and below are the panels on the gun. To save a bit of time since this is the last session that I am going to be able to focus on the gun, I used a glue gun to stick on the panels!

 

After cutting the dowel for the front barrel, I then moved on to the rear outer sections, being the circular shapes. I used the yellow foam to make these, again because they are better for detail work. After marking the exact shape of the pieces and cutting away the main excess of foam with a scalpel, I found that using one of the smaller hand graters, rather then shredding the foam as it would with the blue foam, on the yellow worked to create a quick smooth line that was much more effective and created a cleaner effect then using the scalpel.

 

Here is the gun at the end of the session - as you can see it is a vast improvement on last week but I will admit to being dissapointed with my work in terms of my working speed this week and that is something that I am going to work to improve on as the weeks progress!

 

Next week we are going to start casting work, which I am intrigued to learn about as this is something that I haven't yet had any experience with.

 

 

PROPS AT LAST!

This lesson it was time for the part I was most anticipating - props making!
In this and the next lesson we were to select and make a prop either from a photo/design we had brought in or from one of the example images provided.  Our tutor had provided a range of images from simple to make to relatively complex, and considering that I'm new to props and want to learn to make them well I felt it best to ask for his advice on what to go for on my first try!

With this in mind after some discussion, we decided on this prop gun as out of the prop guns it had the most interesting detail and was different from anything I had done before.

 

 

The first step was to break down the prop into sections in terms of how to make it, how 3D it is and different layers. This it turns out is quite complex in terms of layers, with the back obviously not visible on the image but a number of layers being implied. The decision to make is how many layers - it is either 5 or 7, and how they fit together is also going to be a challenge. 

 

The first section to make was the handle with the trigger, and making it large enough to slot into the main body of the prop. After discussing it with my tutor he recommended making it out of MDF, so I drew out the shape on a 1cm sheet of MDF and after a demonstration on using the bandsaw got to - under the supervision of the tutor since it has been a while since I've used it - cut out the shape!

 





 The next step was making the other large parts out of blue foam. I started with finding a cylindrical section for the main front barrel which was luckilly the right diameter, and cutting it to the right length using the hot wire tool. I then found a segment for the main body of the gun, which I marked out and again but to the right size and shape with the hot wire tool.

Above - creating cuts with the hot wire tool!



In order to get the front curve right for the tapering I marked out the center working outwards and marked the diameter for the front barrel dowelling. I then marked in dots the length of the tapering down the barrel, then began filing away at blue foam.

During filing

Here are the finished sections!

 

 

The final task of the day was to make the top fin for the front barrel, and after marking out the length of the front barrel on a piece of the correct diameter dowel, I used yellow foam - a much more dense foam then the blue - and used a scalpel to cut the shape. I chose to use the yellow foam as, because it is more dense you can create cleaner finer details then with the blue.

 

Next times session will be carrying on with our props!



New Skills - Continued!

Second Character Modelling Session

Continuing from the last session, in this weeks session we have continued on the models we started last week - in my case, my Master Shi Fu (Kung Fu Panda) and it has gone tremendously well to the point that I got a wonderful compliment on it from the tutor!

In this session, I was finishing with the bulking out and working on refining. The first order of business was giving him the shell! To do this I cut a section of fine mesh to the right shape and size using the picture as a reference, and cut the outline of the top contours to give me a guide. I then covered the mesh in a thin layer of sculpey and fixed it onto the main model, smoothing it down to merge it, then sculpting the contours of the top edge of the shell.

On closer inspection, he was a little too flat in the body so I bulked out the shell and front a bit more to make it more rounded, smoothing off as I went while trying to keep him even and not lumpy, moving his arm out of the way as I went to avoid damaging it.

 

 

The next step was to start work on the hands, and to get it looking like he is holding his 'staff' though only half of it is currently there being the end of the armature wire for his arm. Using some of the provided sculpting tools I prised the sculpey away from the wire on the inside of the hand and forming the base of the fingers and thumb, curling them round into the right position around the wire. 

 

I have decided to form the claws separately, cook them and attach them on to the raw model before baking the whole thing - this is a method usually employed for facial features with eyes and teeth so that the lines remain clean, and so they will remain the right shape and not be damaged while sculpting the rest of the model.

I also had to take some sculpey from the bottom edge of the hands as I realised through sculpting them that it was too wide.

 

The next step was to add the line of the front shell and to form the lines and grooves around the arms showing where they were emerging from it. I did this using the 'sausage' technique, forming a wide roll of sculpey flattened out and then blending the bottom edge into the rest of the model, keeping the top edge clean. I then used a sculpting tool to form the grooves around the shell edges around the arms and legs.

 

 

One of the important things is to keep checking the model against the picture to make sure that its all coming out the right scale and size, and that the posture is correct with nothing being knocked. After that it was time to form the top edge of the front shell, and to form the face. I found this very tricky, as having formed the eyes separately and merging them on to the head and then shaping the eyes, I found that instead of looking inquisitive he looked quite intimidating. After consulting with the tutor and checking it against the picture I realised that the eyes were not rounded enough and the jaw was too small, with the mouth being too close to the eyes. After adding these changes, it still did not look quite right but after checking the picture I noticed a bump for the nose that was almost camouflaged due to the angle of the image, and upon adding it in it was much improved.

 

 

 The wrinkles on the neck are an integral part of the character - as an elderly tortoise they are a key character detail, and getting them right and realistic is very important. I found that rather then using the harder plastic tools, silicone tools were better as they created a smoother, softer crease that looked far more realistic. From there, with the bulking out done I was able to add the final larger detail of the sash. with no back view of the character to go from this was tricky and involved a large amount of, well, making it up, but on the whole I hope I have not done too bad a job!

 

And here it is at the end of the session with the extra wrinkles added at the neck - the product of just over 5 and a half hours work. I will be working on it at home to get the patterning on the skin done, to finish the hands and legs, and to do the staff - hopefully I will have it finished soon.

 

I am incredibly excited about the next session as, while I have immensely enjoyed the character modelling and hopefully have discovered I hope a small measure of talent for it, next session we start props making techniques and that is predominantly what I hope to learn.



New skills!

As I am currently in a bit of a costume lull it seemed like the perfect time to learn some new skills, and so I have started the Modelmaking evening course at the Arts University to learn more about props making and add some more skills to my repertoire!

Last night was only my second class, the first being for architectural style models, let night however we started making character armatures to practice scaling images and converting a 2D image to a 3D form! This is a huge element of what costume and set is about in terms of taking a 2D image that you've designed or been given to build/make and turning it into the 3D finished product. I have done a small amount of armature making before during my degree - having a scaled person inside your set model can make a huge difference when your designing, show you when you have scaled other parts wrong or where things need to be changed or moved using your figure as a point of reference. In costume and set, the standard scale used is 1:25, so I have experience making 1:25 set models and people, however larger scale models and props are something that I have had no experience with before so it was interesting last night making larger armatures as it involves a lot of techniques that I would not have guessed.

Learning the skills to create accurate armatures and set models to express your designs in 3D in miniature can make a drastic difference in how your set design can be interpreted as it's built, especially when it comes to texturing and surfaces. Sometimes drawings and annotated diagrams just aren't enough.

So, in this 2 week practice we are learning and improving on how to create scaled models from 2D images, and for the sake of practicing and a bit of fun I have decided to use one of the images provided by the tutor - I am making Master Shi Fu from Kung Fu Panda (I do apologise if I have spelt that wrong) 

In last nights session I build the armature frame from florists wire, using 2 thick pieces of wire as the main structure - the first as the flat front view to get the size and bulk right from the front view, the second to form the curve size of the shell at the back and the ends curving round the front to form the basis for the arms. Using thin florists wire I made onto this the structure for the long neck and head, and wrapped lengths around the original wire to add rigidity and give the sculpting material a better surface to grip on to.

 

Then, in a technique I hadn't seen used before I used tin foil, first to 'bandage' round the front frame to form a front and back section to make it easier to work with, then compacted tin foil in a long oval ball to form the bulk of the shell. This creates bulk without wasting the sculpting material and it keeps the model light so that if the supports are thin it will still allow it to stand.

I then used sculpey - standard modelling material for Modelmaking and set design - to bulk  out the frame and start forming the outside of the model, pushing it into all the sections of the frame to make sure no air was trapped as that would make the structure unstable while I was working on it, as well as create problems when it is fired.
 

 

Next time we will be finishing and firing our models.