To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 22:04:47 -0500
Subject: [Puptcrit] Eye mechs: easier than we think


Hobey wrote:
>That warrants a look into how vent figures achieve that, for eye
controls are among the hardest to make, personally.   Marionette eyes
are intriguing as well.   Bil Baird's eye controls blew my mind, the
legs and knee joints as well but they aren't nearly as baffling as
eyes.  There are at least four unfinished eye mechanisms sitting next
to my work bench.
------------------------

I needed much better insight about eye mechanisms last summer, for a short 
film puppet.
So I got Mike Brose's book "Figure Making Can be Fun?!?".

For the short film, we ended up using a much more simplified system than 
first planned, but we definitely got inspired by Mike's book. The 
instructions in it are very clear. I'm glad to have that book in my library, 
I know I can count on it for the next time I get a mechanical movement in a 
puppet head.

Inner head mechanics are more complex than simple elbows or knees, but given 
proper time, patience and precision, they are not as complicated as they 
seem at first.

For me, the hardest aspects so far have been to insert such mechanics inside 
very small heads, and to fit the moving eyes seamlessly with the eyelids, 
especially articulated eyelids ("blinkers", in the vent lingo).


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