Shop Extras Puppet and Armature Service
Puppet and Armature Service
Last Updated on Friday, 11 November 2011 12:41 Written by Marc Spess Monday, 17 May 2010 04:48
Marc Spess
Do you need puppets made for your clay animated film or commercial? Or maybe you need a more permanent sculpture or figure made of Sculpey? Marc Spess and his associates can make you a puppet from your designs. Marc has done work for the Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, Disney's Sweet Tart candies, and more recently Knox's Korners Villain feature film.
Marc also has extensive experience using polymer and oil based clays. The popular and common brands we use are Van Aken Claytoon and Sculpey products. Marc can make aluminum wire armatures for your puppets, or lead wire and brass tube armatures. Brass tube armatures are very involved and raise the cost compared to aluminum wire. The benefit to lead wire and brass tube armatures is that they behave in a similar way to ball and socket armatures.
Marc has made puppets and sculptures for countless people interested in saving time and who want a puppet to animate as opposed to building one. See my professional work here.
Ron Cole is our associate puppet designer, fabricator and animator. As a tactile special effects artist, Ron has worked for over 20 years in the business of creating many props sets and puppets for TV shows and commercials, movies and other art related businesses. Rons greatest experience and passion has been in the world of Stop Motion Animation. He has created a wide variety of puppets both for live action and animation utilizing many different types of materials to produce a full range of styles of creatures and characters. From the T-Rex for the Back to the Future Ride and realistic creatures in horror films to the Pillsbury Doughboy and Muppets for the Jim Henson Studio.
Ron can work from designs provided to us or if a design is needed he is capable of working with you to render your needs through the design process to a working finished product. Whether that character or creature needs to be cartoon or realistic, a cute character, monster or robot, we're certain we can get it done.
See Rons professional work here.
Watch two animation walk cycles Justin Rasch made using the above armature here and here
Juergen Kling is well known for his hand made Stop Mo Tec armature kits. Juergen also has extensive experience working on TV shows, commercials and music videos in Germany. If you are in Germany there is also a good chance you have heard of his workshops devoted to the art of stop motion and teaching how to make puppets and animate.
Juergen is offering his experience as an armature maker to anyone interested in a very nice armature with high production values that are meant for heavy use, or very precise movements. Since he has many years of animation experience, he knows what's best when it comes to the actual armature design process.
Jill Penny is an amazing sculptor and fabricator, with the knack of using fabrics for cloting or plush doll-like puppets. Jill works primarily with sculpey but also with paper and other air dry clays. She also works with oil based clays for molding, and just recently wood. Jill can create all the designs, costuming and sewing with a knack for using actual textures for depth and richness of character. While her abilities do have limits, she has more than enough experience in fabrication to make your puppets look great!
For Jill to make a complete puppet for animation we would utilize the abilities of either Marc, Ron or Jurgen to make the armature for Jill to work her magic over. See a gallery of Jills professional work here and here.
Nick Hilligoss
Nick is one of the top old school build up puppet makers. That means he takes pieces of foam, liquid latex and latex paints to literally build a puppet up from scratch. So if this is what you are after, Nick can handle the job. He also has experience in casting, foam latex and making puppets out of mixed media.
You can view samples of Nicks past work in our gallery by clicking here.
Dave Hettmer
Dave Hettmer specializes in special props, puppetry, and physical effects for productions on a budget. He has worked on many films and productions, some which are well known and some which are quaint. Above is a pirate puppet he made as part of our service for abdalmovies.com. You can see more pictures of this puppets progress here.
For us to make your puppet, sculpture or armature we need to have these questions answered....
- A detailed drawing of the front and side of your puppet or sculpture if possible. The more detail in the drawing - the better the sculpt will look.
- What is the height you need for your puppet/puppets?
- Do you want the puppet to have real clothes, or sculpted and painted clothes?
- Do you want real hair or sculpted?
- Do you want to have a wire armature or ball and socket?
- Replacement faces or manipulated by paddles/wire in the face
- Clay hands or foam/silicone
- To know how your puppet will perform. Will your puppet be flying? This makes the design more tricky. So give us as much information as you can.
- Do you prefer clay or cast foam/silicon hands? There can be direct build-up hands in liquid latex for thinner hands.
- what material should the body or whole puppet be? Could be:
Clay
Latex and cushion foam build-up
Foam Latex
Silicone
Hard materials like wood, Super Sculpey or epoxy putty, fibreglass, - like robots or traditional puppets.
Price: Depending on complexity the cost of a full stop motion puppet or sculpting project can range from thirty dollars to several hundred dollars - or more. It all depends on what is called for. Send us your ideas and we can give you an estimate for your project.
Contract alterations: On big jobs revision fee's may apply to any changes done that are not in the original reference drawings and materials provided.
To get started just e-mail the answers to our question list above to Marc:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Not sure if you will be happy with our puppet service? Then read Anthony Michael Abdy's testimonial about his experience with us by clicking here.
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written by frank, July 26, 2010
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written by jordan wade, January 19, 2011
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written by bdiddy, March 09, 2011
Brian
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written by Lars-Bo, April 02, 2011
I have mailed you a message and a picture of two figures. Use your imagination!
I hope it's alright.
Thanks.
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written by Lars-Bo, April 06, 2011
It depends on how long it will take before you have time?
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