Robo--Bimbo

Happy fourth to all my American cohorts!

During the Winter semester, I was in an advertising class. We divided ourselves up into groups and worked on a few spec advertisements (ads that you build to add to your professional reel, not to present to a client). One of our little projects was a Norton anti-virus spec ad, and it involved robot puppets. I used a previous robot that I made, and then I built this lovely female puppet:

Robot Concept Art

In an effort to post more often I've decided to show more progress shots and concept work. One of the longest steps for me is solidifying the final look. I sometimes will skip this step and just throw a puppet together, however I am rarely pleased with the result. I also feel there is a great deal of satisfaction in seeing your vision come to life. Most of the time I will sketch out my vision and work from a drawing. Other times I will sculpt a clay miniature. This is a much longer process, but gives the advantage of seeing the concept in the round, making it easier to think about the puppet from all angles. Also, it's easy to make little changes to the model.




This a concept for an up-coming project. The final product should look close to other puppets I've made, however the eyes where giving me a lot of trouble. Fortunately, I was able to work out the kinks.

Finished Robot

This is Bot. He was part of a short student film I helped with.

Robot Puppet Legs

Here are the legs for the "Robo-Kid" puppet. They are made primarily of PVC pipe, craft foam, and paper clay. I really like how the feet came out. The last step will be finding a way to attach them to the body.

Robot Puppet Arms

And now the arms are done. Yeah! I'm almost done with the whole puppet. My crowning achievement with the arms is the shoulder. They have three points of articulation, for full range of motion. 

Robo Kid Puppet

So recently I have been asked to be part of a fun film project. It is a production by a group of BYU film students. My role not surprising is puppet builder/puppeteer. The puppeteer part has me a little worried, because I'm a little rusty, however I'm up for it!

I'm using a kit I bought at a local craft to age the metal finish and dull down some of the silver metal paint. The director wanted the eyes to be giant metal nuts, so I took a silicone mold of the biggest nuts I could find, and then cast them in a hard plastic resin.

I had to polish every inch of the hard dense foam with a dremel tool to get the surface of the foam to be less sponge looking. Then I smoothed out the tooling marks by adding a little heat.

The welding around the eyes is painted hot glue.


I have really enjoyed working on this puppet, because I haven't had to sew anything. It's been a nice change of pace to paint the foam. The results are a little more instant, and if I don't like the way a color came out I just paint over it easy as you please. The puppet has been a delightful challenge, learning to make foam look like metal. I've been very satisfied with the results, though I still have a long way to go.

Going to the Second Grade!

Here is a robot and an alien I built for my aunt's 2nd grade class. I tried to take a few pictures of how I tackled the alien's ringed arms.

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