DIY Wire Armature for Stop Motion

1. Introduction to the Course: Hello and welcome to this D I, Y course on wire armatures for stop motion animation. Through these lessons, you're going to learn the fundamentals to create a fully functional puppet that will be able to stand on its own just like this one. Now I really love stop motion animation. But when I first started learning how to make armatures, but here is like liquid foam latex and silicon molding felt really intimidated to me and made me feel like I would never be able to make something I could use in a stop motion video. But the end of this course is to show you that you could make your own. Are Majer using just basic materials. And I hope that it inspires you to get creative and start animating with whatever you have , whatever you're experienced. So let's get started. 2. Choosing Your Wire: Okay, So the first thing you're going to meet, of course, to make a wire armature is some wire, and the wire I recommend is gonna be a 1/16 inch or 1.5 millimeter aluminum wire. And the reason we use this wire is it holds the shape quite well. However, I bend it, it's going to stay in place, and it also is quite strong. So if I bend it multiple times, it's not gonna snap really easily. That makes this wire would be the best one. If you only have some steel wire that you were hoping to use, you definitely can still do that. It will work for an armature. The only difference is it's not gonna be quite as easy to bend how you like it. And it might snap more easily, depending on the wire you have. So it's not as ideal is this, but it's definitely still workable. And if this is what you have, definitely still go for it now, in terms of the size, the reason I want to use a 1.5 millimeter is if I'm using something smaller like this is a one millimeter or this is a 10.8 millimeter. It's got Ben quite easily and not gonna be a strong, so I might end up when I'm well animating getting some sinking or bending that I didn't plan for. So, um, this isn't as ideal as this one. If you have a one millimetre that you want to use, you can probably still make it work. You might want to twist extra like three instead of two just to get that extra strength. But you could still definitely use that. I wouldn't use the 20.8. It just It's just too weak and you don't go too much thicker than the 1.5 millimetre example. This is 84.5 millimeter or I have a, um, a six millimeter. It's just you're not going to get any kind of refined movement out of this, and it's gonna be so hard to bend that you'll and not just bashing your puppet when you tryto an immediate. So don't use these. Don't use these. Use this or or this if you have it. But this is gonna be your steel wire. The other kinds of wire I'll be using is, um, this is some floor wire or crash fire opportunity. See, it's wrapped in some kind of green tape because it's used for fake flowers. And I like to use this to make has because it makes, um, nice and thin fingers. Or you can use it to wrap your joints to make it tight. Um, I also have This is very thin wire that I used to wrap up some of the joints to make them more secure. But these two events later, pretty optional. If you don't have thes, then don't worry about it. Just stick with the basic wire that you're gonna use. So once you got your way, we're ready to start making our armature. 3. Starting Your Armature: Okay, So, structure armature, you're going to want a sketch of the puppet you're going to make to scale. I'm just using this generic kind of armature outline because mine's just gonna be German, Eric. But you can use a sketch if you like, or you can, um I have these in the project page. You can print them off. This one isn't eight inch, and you're gonna want to make your puppet between six and eight inches. The reason for that is if it's less than six is gonna be quite finicky to try toe enemy in it. And it is more than 10. You're just getting kind of big and bulky, and we have to make your set to scale, and it's just gonna be too big. So between 6 to 10 inches, I like to make my puppets eight inches. I'm gonna be doing an eight inch one today, but you could do with what you feel. Um, So I'm going to start with my 1.5 millimeter aluminum wire to maketh e legs, so I'm gonna cut a two pieces about the length we're a bit longer. Then I need for the legs. The reason I make it longer and obviously this is just rough cause I'm interested. There is no longer is because when I twisted is going to lose some leg. And also, if I am not making it too short, I can't really glue on more, but I can definitely always trim it off. So I'm gonna make to strap is the same length with the feet. I this and now some people, if they have an electric drill, they'll put one end in the electric drill and then grab the other end of their players. And then I just did that way. So if you have an electric drill definitely over that I don't. So I'm just gonna be using my pliers to grab this and and interesting. Now, whether you're using electrical or doing it by hand, if you don't want to twist this too tightly because once you get really tight, you can actually lose a lot of the strength in the wire, and it will break a lot more easily. Basically, you just want to twist it, so it'll stay together as one piece. You can see you might not even it's not that tight, but I don't need it to be. So just like that. Next thing I want to do is check and make sure, and once it's posted, still have, um the length that I need. It's gonna make the foot a bit longer than I need. I'm gonna market with a pen I invented quite accurately here. This is my feet that I need the hip. Ben's here and then and my hip is here. Down at the foot here is gonna be us and Ben and you could see it. I still have quite a lot here, but I could definitely trim that later. Was interested for now. So it's one of my weight. Now you definitely want to make sure your legs are the same length so that you hope it will stand evenly if you leave this. If you think, Oh, it's close enough, it's OK. But then when you go to animate, you'll find every time you try to take a step, you're getting like Quasimodo effect. So you definitely want to make sure it's even here. And then if you need to make some adjustments, definitely do that now rather than once you've got a whole cup. It going Okay, Once you've got your feet, the next thing I'm gonna do is make peace. Fine. And I'm gonna still be using the 1.5 millimeter wire for the spot. And I'm just gonna cut one piece and unfolded in half. So probably around. There's fine And, of course, again make it longer resident shorter. I'm uninterested like this just to keep the look at the bottom, which is gonna be useful to me. Um, so I just hung in there and just it up, and then I'm gonna make this leap Small ambit tighter. Okay, Now, on my legs, Mark, the halfway point where I want my spine to go And what I can do with this boo is slide it on the end here and attach it to the center, and I'm just gonna twist it, so it's a bit tighter around. Okay, Like the hips there. Okay, museums wildly now. But that's OK, cause we'll be reinforcing it later. Just gonna squish it down, okay? It's not my legs and spine. So the next thing I'm gonna need is some arms 4. The Arms: Okay, so the next step for it is going to be the arms, and it's kind of two ways you can do the arms, and it's going to depend on what kind of material you're going to be using to cover your puppet. So if you're gonna be using plastic seeing, which is kind of the most common, that's what people think of when they need to stop motion. You're not going to need these finger wires just because the plasticine itself will hold the shape of the hand. Quit. Well, um, And if you do try to put some wires in when you bend the finger, you're actually gonna end up peeling the pasta seen off of the wire, and it's just gonna be kind of a nightmare to try and work with. So if you're doing pasta scene, you don't need to use wire fingers. You can just kind of end the flat, but then when you would with your feet, if you are going to put in and fingers, maybe you're covering it with fabric or silicon. Or maybe you got some gloves that you want to put on. Then you're gonna need somewhere in the fingers just you can still spend it. So what I'm doing that I like to use this this craft wire, this floral wire. Because once I twisted together, then I've got five, um, ready made fingers. And there's not gonna be too thick or bulky. So I've got these nice, thin fingers and what that will look like is, once I put on my, um, epoxy putty or whatever it is, I'm using that. I've got these five nice fingers coming out of my hand. I'm ready to the enemy or cover, I guess. But so if you're gonna be doing that, you definitely want to twist together five of these or five of a thinner wire or four. If you're doing more cartoon, look, But, um, I'm gonna be sticking with the the Claymation style puppet interior, so I'll be using I'm gonna be using a the one millimeter aluminum wire and doesn't really a lot of reason behind that. Um, the arms are they don't need to be a strong is the legs just cause they're not holding as much weight. And I'm also running a bit low on no. 1.5, so I have no change to one millimeter, you can keep using what you're using or changes. Well, it's up to you. So the hours are going to start pretty much the same as the lake. I'm gonna cut a link and with the arms actually want, um, quite a bit extra length just because I'm gonna end up twisting it around the spine a couple of times and I don't want to lose too much length when I do that. So just like the Lakers, I'm gonna cut two strands about those, namely. And you're also welcome to cut one and then twisting, um, fold like thank you for this final work as well. Okay, so just like for the legs, I'm gonna grab it and twist and again, it doesn't have to be very tight. Some people keep this super loose like, barely together, and it's totally up to you. But just don't make it too tight cause I'm your arms. It's not quite easily and arms user, you you move quite a bit. So you want to be them, have them quite strong. So you don't have to replace them too often of it. So once I got them twisted, um, I'm actually going, Teoh, take my spine and mark where I want the arms to be, which is gonna be like here. Then I'm gonna take my pliers, and I'm actually gonna open up this wire here. So I've gotten I got, like, a hole in it. Then I'll take my arms and slide them through my whole. Then I'm just close this up of it. And then I just wrapped them around once, just for that extra ability. Okay, then I am going to mark come where I want them to bed, I'm sure. Right. Puppeteers lined up market here, market and then is up to If you want to trim the hands now, word from them later depends if they'll be in your way. I'm not your mind now, but I'm gonna keep them still so I could trim without them a little bit more later if I want. I think there's still a bit long. Okay, so now that you've got your basic Skiles and you're ready to reinforce thes joint 5. Reinforce the Joins: Okay, We've got our basics. Guys in finished presidency's quiet. Humbly. So we're about to just reinforce these two areas here because they're not gonna move when were animating. So I want to make sure they're nice. Insulted. So the first thing I want to do to reinforce here is wrap the joint in some thin wire should be used description wire or if you have some dinner and wire, Um, just to wrap them up and give you that extra layer of stability. Now, if you don't have any thin wire to wrap this end, uh, you could always get this step. It's not a vital step, but it is just gonna give you that extra bit of support when you're, um, fixing these in place. So I definitely recommend doing it if you have the wire. But if you don't, then you're welcome to skip it. It's just gonna keep it. Once you got your party on from from sliding out of place, you can see already it's quite stiff here. I don't have to worry about it slightly that off. And then I actually even take my players on this question here, and I'm not too worried about, um, squishing this part of the water. I wouldn't want to squish somewhere where I'm gonna bend it. That could ruin the integrity, but here, it's not gonna matter too much. So I've done that there, and I'm just going to do the same thing, the last bit of wire on the arms here and and switch it up and you could see already my profits quite a lot firmer. So starting at this point, I'm gonna be doing to pull our mentors at one time and what I wouldn't be doing, even see, they're pretty much the same in this one. I'm used the thinner wire and the five finger our method. But this one I'm gonna be doing kind of an ideal scenario what I would like to use for my puppet, and then this one will be more about Frankenstein puppet where I can show you some alternatives if you don't have some of the materials that I want to use for this one. So we're gonna step with this guy. So the best thing you're gonna want to use here's a put on these two joints is an epoxy putty. You have the epoxy putty the reason you want to use this is just gonna dry, really hired like the rock. So you're never not going to have to worry about any kind of movement here. Now, everybody comes kind of in two ways. So this, too, you can see it's got the the outer area and then the inner, different color. So then, um, those are the two parts. You just cut off a piece and mix it together aan den, the other where you could end up getting it is what comes into separate packets where you still do the one toe one. You just have to cut off the, um, two separate pieces and mix it together. Seems you would. So I'm gonna be using just this one doesn't make a difference for these. It's still unwrapped the plastic. Don't plastic in it And take a night on Cut off this much. I don't need that much just to cover these two places, and now you want to need this together until you have no more marbling. So until there's no green or whatever color it is left, it's all one solid color you can see here. I've got all of the color mixed in. So I'm just gonna take a bit of the pipe and wrap it around my joint here. Now, you can tell when the epoxy putty is starting to set because it will get really quite warm . So when it gets the point, you know, you gotta hurry and finish. But you should have plenty of time to get this finished. Was no one there and the same thing on the bottom. Joy, just wrap it around in the three. Beautiful. It doesn't matter if it's smooth just so long as it's gonna hold my my joint in place and I don't know where about it Sliding in the middle of a an animation. Do you really wanna press it into the grabs right onto the wire rather than just being kind of a cover for it? Okay, so I need to do so. I just have to wait until that dries. And this is a quick, dry, um, party. So it'll be allergic about 10 minutes. It was, but that inside 6. Alternatives: Okay, so now that my epoxy putty puppet is drying, I'm gonna move on to my foreign concerned puppet and maybe give you some suggestions of things you can use here if you don't have any of that epoxy putty. So well, you want to think about is your goal here is to make this as hard as possible so that when you're at a meeting, you're not gonna get any kind of wobble around the the joint here and your wire might be quite firm. But once you start animating in your movie around quite a bit, you can lose some of that stability. So you want to put something here to keep it strong. Now, one thing you can definitely use is a bay kable place, such as like a scope E and put it around and then bake your wire puppet and get it nice and hired There. Now, I don't have an oven, so I'm not going to be using that. But if you have, it s definitely something out Recommend. The only difference between that and the epoxy putty is the epoxy party. It's just gonna be a little bit harder for you. So what I'm gonna use is where this joint. I'm gonna take some of this. This is paper click. So this is an air dry Klay. So, um, I don't bake it, and it will just dry hard with air. Now, this is quite cheap where I'm living, but, um, I know in some places, it can be expensive, so definitely don't Don't spend a bunch of money on this. It'll probably just be cheaper to get some epoxy putty. But if you've got some lying around, it's definitely use it. You can see this Clay is made with paper, both. So it's kind of not like any other Clay, I think, but it'll dry fairly hard. So, um, I'm just gonna do the same as I did the party and just wrap it her on the right here. Make sure it's nice and tight, and then I can't wait for that to try. And of course, it doesn't have to look beautiful. This is the inside of the puppet, but you can see it's kind of probably here, which means I need to tightness upbin, impress the places right into the wires there. Okay, so that's the first right Now, if I was going to use paper play. I would use it for both if I'm using the oven, bake legs for both. But since I'm giving you something suggestive, I'm actually gonna try and do this with some kind of paper mache. A tight, Um, look. So I'm going Teoh, just for some marks. River down. So I get my surface wet. I have some here. Just, uh, white glue mixed with a bit of water and some strips of newspaper. So all of my energy is like paper machine. I'm going to, uh, paint some of that water and glue onto the paper and then wrap it around. Okay, so there you have it. Have some people rush a there, and my people click here. So I'll have to do is like the party week for its trying. And I'm ready to move on to my feet 7. The Feet: Okay, so now that my epoxy putty has hardened started, the next thing I'm gonna do is the feet. Now, with the feet, you have two options of, um ways to do them. The 1st 1 is to make a tie down armature, in which case you will put a Not in that you can actually screw to the sets. You drill holes in your sudden and screw your puppet in. But the other option, which is what I'm going to dio, is to put in a magnet. So then you have a magnet in the foot and a magnet underneath the set and that holds your puppet upright. So if you wanted to do a tie down, you certainly can. Basically, just where I put the magnet and you put in a knot, the first thing I'm gonna do is untwist the foot here so that I have a space to put a magnet inside. There I have a foot shape. And then what will happen is I'll take one of these magnets and I put it here in the foot, and you want to put it if you have space in the front of the foot rather than the bath just because then it's possible for your puppet Teoh, bend his foot or stand on his toes. If he needs Dio was, if you would at the back, he's gonna always have to be on his heel, which is doesn't give you as much flexibility. I don't wanna put the maintenance inside the toe here. And to do that, I'm actually going to take my epoxy putty again and put it in. But first, I'm gonna do this foot. You can see I have quite a lot of extra on this one. So the other option instead of untwist ing is I can just loop this around and make my foot that way. If you got the length, I'm gonna be a little bit easier. Probably Ethan, doing it this way. Put whatever you have, it looks like this is a little bit bigger. So I'm just gonna twisted again. That and there we go. And then same as the other one. I put them in it. Here, Here, Here. Okay. So separate. Remain in then. Um, once again, I take my epoxy putty a man once again mixing it so that there's no marbling. Okay, so now that my, um there's no marbling left. It's come with these. I'm gonna take the magnet and put it in the foot, and I'm gonna put it on the top more than the bottom just cause I want the foot to lie flat here. And I'm just gonna cover the whole, um maybe with Clay and then underneath just a little bit around the edge. Because what I want is I want the putting to hold the magnet in place. But I don't want it. Teoh block the magnet so that it will be not a strong someone is enough to hold the magnet she can see about like, I lit over it. But I don't want to completely embed it in the party. And again, the party's only covering half the foot so that I can still bend it here if I need to from our animation not cleaning up a bit. Action foot, then Same for the other one. Take the magnet, Put it in the butt on cover with the body a little bit for it. And I don't want this to be lumpy because I need him to stand flat, so make sure it's fairly flat on the bottom, and then you have it. So that is the epoxy putty magnet feet, and I'm ready to move on to my Frankenstein puppet. 8. An Alternative: Okay, so now I'm going to want to do the same thing for my Frankenstein puppet because you mind paper, Clay and my people should He's high thing are hard now, so they keep my profit nights in place. So same thing I'm gonna do magnets in the feet rather than the tied house. So I'm going to twist the feet into a little. Now, the reason I'm still doing magnets on its feet is because you kind of don't really have any other options. I've tried a lot of different methods for sticking down the feet ticky tack or double sided tape or or even trying to rig my puppet from the back through the back of the set wall. So I don't have to, um, where you about it collapsing and really none of them worked. So if you're using trying to use something sticky to keep the feet down, you're not gonna be able to find something sticky enough to hold it. That is also gonna be loose enough that you can take it off and put gone for. You're different shocks, so really, just do the magnets or do the tie downs. I recommend magnets, but it's up to you. And again if you're doing a tie down, just when when I put in the then you put in a knot and just make sure you don't get any of your party or whatever you're using into the threads of the nuts that you can still screw in that screw your tie down. Okay, so you can see output one twisted so I could put them in it in any other one. I'm twisted so that I can stick it in like that. Of course, with this puppet, what I want to do is show you an alternative to the epoxy putty. So what I'm gonna use just declaiming it in for this one is a hot glue gun. It's basically imminent in the same thing I did with the party. I'm just gonna use a the glue them. So I'm gonna put my doing that in here. Make sure, So I want it and then just fill up faced with hot glue. Okay, so that's one foot done. As you can see, I've covered the the magnet with glue, and I've also put some just underneath the magnet toe hold it into place there. So then I'm just gonna do the same thing with the other foot. Get another magnet and do it again only. And then you have it. U N C B magnets are completely covered as under my fingers in hot glue, and I just have to wait for those two dry and we'll be ready to go. 9. Bones: Okay, Once I've got my feet finished, I'm ready to put in the skeleton of my puppet. And for that, I'm gonna have to bringing back in my sketch, which I've got here. I'm going to use these marking for my bones. So I know here and here need to be stick Wasn't the elbow little bed. And the reason for putting in the bones here is then it makes it much easier when I'm at a meeting that I know. Every time I've been the arm, I'm gonna bend it at the same elbow on a bended in the middle of the bicep, which would be impossible. So I'm gonna put in the bones here if you're making a puppet. Um, that needs to have a really cartoony feel like maybe you need the arms toe wave or you're not following like, a human anatomy. Then you can definitely You skipped the step or put in bones wherever you need them. I'm gonna be following this so standard like human bones. So to make the bones, I'm getting gonna do the epoxy putty. So putting in the places. But first, I'm going to line up my puppet and mark with my pen where I need So I know the shoulder. And then around here, around here and at the risk. And then same on this side here, here, on the wrist. Okay. How many is this epoxy putty? Um, no reason it works the same as this one. Just in case if somebody has this kind and they just want to see somebody use it, then they can. So same as the other one, except not in a tube. So I just need to equal pieces and unique, um, favorite more than so you did for the feet, cause I'm gonna need here, here, here and then eventually here, here and here. So I'm going to make quite a bit, okay. And actually, before I mix it might as well market the lakes as well. Here. Here. Yeah, and really, this place is your last chance to make sure your legs are the same height. So if you put on the bones and then realize that the length is not the same, you're kind of stuck. There's not a lot you can do to fix it. You just kind of a restart or maybe make some platform shoes forward or something. But if you find at this point that you're legs are even what you can always do is take the longer one and twist it tighter, so it'll make it shorter. I mean, that's not ideal to deal just because obviously, you lose some of that integrity when you twisted. But if they are uneven, I recommend you do that. Now, say, with the arms, if they don't even just trust the longer one or untwist be shorter one. Whichever is makes more sense to you. Okay, So I'm just gonna need these together again until there's no marbling. Okay? And once I got it all mixed, I'm ready to put in the bones. Wherever I mark, we're gonna just kind of squish it around, making sure I'm at my line that I marked here and again. These are gonna be inside of your puppet, so you don't need to worry about it being moving. Beautiful. But you do want it tight enough that is gonna grab onto the wire there. It's just not sliding around on your You have got the two parts of the arm with space for the elbow here. And then I could still bend it at the shoulder there, then the same on the other side. - Okay , so that's finished. I got a bit of leftover party here, and I mean, it's kind of useless. Now it's in a genital rocks. I'm just gonna stick it on the feet. Not for any reason, just to use it up. I guess it's garbage anyway. Okay. And then you have it. So these are his bones finished. So now I can set him aside to dress and show you annul Tentative on life Frankenstein. 10. Four Easy Epoxy Alternatives: Okay, now we're ready to put the skeleton on our Frankenstein. As you could see, Hiss Hot glue feet have tried, but nice thing his magnets are nice. And in that so now the same thing as we did The epoxy putty we want to do is stop our puppet from bending where we don't want him to so that we don't get ah, drifting elbow. That kind of moves up and down the arm dancing with me. What I have is a piece of a skewer which I can cut up to the length of the bull and then wrap it on with some wire. So I'm gonna do that for one of the arms here is you can see it. So I'm just going to mark on my skewer. The link that I need that's gonna be the top of the arm. And then I don't need to worry about an elbow. So De Wrist is there, So I know this is the top, and this is the bottom and monologist levy gap for the wrist and an honor to do is cut this up. Okay, there we Iive got that cut up. Now I'm using a secure But of course, you can use anything similar if you have some toothpicks or even like a take away chopstick kind of thing. You could Maybe you might have split it to make it a bit thinner, but you definitely usable. So whatever you have you could use and then all I'm gonna do is take the same floral wire that I used for the arms in this one and for reinforcing the joints in my other puppet. And I'm gonna wrap this around the arm to attach, and I don't have to draw the lines cause already know this is the link that I need Can. I'm gonna squish it. Pliers. I know my wires fairly tight on there. Then I'm gonna do the same with the bottom half of the arm. Okay, I got that wrapped around. I'm just going to squish in a little bit. Make sure it's nice and tight there something. But as you can see, I already have quite a, um, solid place. Y know, I'm gonna bend my arm, but just to add an extra level of stability here, I'm gonna take my super blue were no name brand superglue. And just add a line of glue just where I have my wood joining to my arm. That's what's gonna give me a little bit of security there. So when I'm animating and moving the arm around quite a bit, I know it's not going to slide. Okay, so that's one method you can use to make your puppet skeleton. Of course, you've been always used the same thing that you used for your join here for your arms. Just like I used a box of fighting for here and here in the other ones. So if you used a breakable clay, then you can definitely still use breakable. Play here and just bake your amateur. You probably want to do all at the same time. If you're gonna bake. Don't do them separately. Um, so I used paper clay for this, So I'm gonna use some paper clay again and again. I'm just going to do the same thing that I did with the epoxy putty mark where I need my joins to be, and then fill it in with the paper, Clay. Okay, so I will say I have used paper claims for these joints before, and this end part where it gets thinner because the paper clay isn't that strong. You will get a little bit of crumbling here when you start to enemy when you bend the wire against the edge. But if you don't have anything else, it will still hold a basic shape here. So you you still have that elbow area that you will be working with, so it's better than nothing. So if you've got paper Clay and you want to use it, still go for it. Just know that you will get a little bit of crumbling here, but it's still gonna work. And of course, again, I'm used to doing things. But if I was gonna pick one thing, I would just use it for everything. This is just to show you. So I've got my skewers and my clay. So for the legs, I'm going to do two different things. Okay, so for the lake again, I'm going to want to, But where I wanted to be stiff, Why don't Here my thigh ends and there's my calf beginning. I don't need to market at the bottom because I know that the ankle is gonna bend sigh and cast. And then with this leg. What I'm actually going to use is the hot glue. No clue when it dries is still, um, fairly flexible. But it is going to give you that amount of stiffness just so you can just so you can get a feeling of where the Okay. Sorry I couldn't do that on screen, but, um, I don't have an electrical outlet near where I'm building, so I had to go off screen and do it. Well, you can see I've just coated the wire with hot glue, and hopefully, if you're planning to use this method, you've seen a hot glue gun before. Um, the only thing I will say with the hot glue is you won't be able to put a clay like a pasta scene directly onto the hot glue. Just somehow, when they mix together, the clay kind of, um, breaks apart the hot glue and it it just doesn't work. So usually you'd be wrapping your puppet with something anyway, um, so it should be all right, But just keep that in mind. If you were planning to put clay directly onto your puppet here, then don't use a hot glue method. Okay? I'm gonna wait a little bit, um, for that to dry, and then I will do the final leg. Okay, Now that that's dried up quite a bit, lending my last leg. And for this final leg, I'm gonna use an incredibly simple method. And this is what I did when I first started making amateurs, which is to wrap the joint in tape. So if you have masking tape or packing tape or I mean, Scotch tape is a bit iffy, some pirates. But if you've got some good Scotch tape from that, you know is going to stay stuck, then. Definitely that, too. I don't have that much tape right now, so I'm gonna use this, um, metallic tape and not for any reason. Just I don't have any masking tape or anything. I feel like back skin shape is the best choice for some reason, but I haven't experimented with scotch tape or even this metallic tape before. So, um, whatever you have, go ahead and use it. So I'm gonna do is take a strip of the tape who was like, curry and wrap it around the joint. And I've already marked before with my pen where I want my bones to be okay. That's my first joint done and already using this metallic keys. Hey, it actually allows me to mold be tape quite well into the shape that I want. So, um, untested for animation. But in terms of putting it on, I would recommend using this. If you have some and you can see already it's not gonna be easy for me to bend. This is gonna be a lot more natural for me to bend it at the uncovered part. So this is, um, very simple, effective method. So if you have some tape, definitely go for it. So I'm just going to do the calf the same. Okay, there I have it. So obviously you can put as many layers as you like, because, um, obviously you don't want it to bend. So even if it incredibly fit, it's not gonna be a problem. So keep propping it until you feel satisfied with the result, and then you are ready to go. That's our skeleton. Done 11. The Hands: So the next thing my puppet needs are some hands. Um, normally, I would do the hams together when I do all the rest of it, but I wanted to kind of talk about it in a separate video just toe break it down a little bit more for you. Um, so to make that hand, remember this puppet I'm doing for clean nations are not going to put in the wired fingers I'm gonna do is, um, bend the hand into a blue where my palm is going to be and then seem on this hand, and it doesn't matter the size of the loop, because what I'm gonna do next is again cover the hand in the epoxy putty and the only thing you want to be careful, that is make sure you still have a bit of a wrist years that you can bend your hand. And then, of course, the fingers themselves will be built up with just plastic singing on the outside. So I'm gonna take again my epoxy putty and wrapped the hand. Okay. So again, I just split it in half. This is too much. I ran too much. My my box and still a little bit tacky. Um, then I will wrap the hand. Now, I kind of like to try to make a bit of a square shape just cause if you look at your own hand this park, it kind of isn't a circle. So I kind of make that that here a little bit. I will obviously be building processing over it, but it gives me a nice base to make more. With this to country. Of course, if you want, like, around her hand shaped, then make it round. But I prefer to make that kind of square shape here. Same on the other side. Okay, there we are. You can see I still have a bit of a gap here, so my wrists will still be bendable when it's dry. And I am ready to build on some processing on my Frankenstein puppet. Of course, I have the five finger wire here, and really, I wouldn't do an alternative for the epoxy putty on the hand here again. I would still want to make this part hard in an ideal world, just because when you bend your hand, this part isn't going to be moving, so it would be really useful not to have that movement in my hand here. But none of the things I used here are going to hold the hand hard enough and be, um, kind of find enough that I am able to get the kind of detail I want here. So if I didn't have a poxy party, I would probably just leave it. And then when I put on my my fabric or something, I would wrap it, um, kind of tightly around joining the figures together and then using that toe, hold the shape rather than Chinese hot glue or or clay. Um, So what I would do either if I'm doing epoxy putty or not, is I want five fingers and a thumb, and the time is gonna be on the inside, pointed towards the body because your head is like that. So this is my some here on the outside, and I'm just gonna wrap it around the center of the hands. So now when I cover it, my thumb was gonna be sticking out, which it kind of does from a have it sticks out like that. And my thought here is quite short. Which means I'm not going to get some fine movement. You might want a bit longer thumb. Um, but in terms of what I'm animating, if I need that kind of this kind of fine movement, I'm probably going to use a larger, um, hand for close up, because when I'm animating, I kind of just meet this bigger movement, which I can get from a shorter thumb like that. So I'm not too worried about that. So if I was using public party, I would cover this section here the same as I do the other puppet. But since I'm not using the epoxy putty on this one, I would just leave it like that and do the same with the other hand, and it's ready to go. 12. Building the Body: So now there's one final step for our puppets whether you used the epoxy putty or whatever . And I love to see pictures of whatever used, whether it be this or or one of these or even something completely different. So please definitely post your work in progress on that on the project Page could really love to see And also any feedback you have if you tried something and it worked three really well or it didn't work. Um, hey, I can't wait to to see what you've done, but the final step that we need is to build up the body. Um, just to show you like this, So we have some some kind of solid thing in the middle. Well, that's all it obviously so squishy. But the reason for that is whether you're gonna cover it with, um, cloves or fabric or anything. This is gonna be too skinny. And even if you're covering it with, um, plus the scene if you're using a claymation puppet, if you try to build all of this up with clay, you're going to get a really heavy, bulky puppet. So if you build it up first with something inside, and then just coat it with, um, Pleistocene, you're gonna find that a lot easier to work with. 13. Building the Body: Foam Core: so I'm going to use board. This guy is I'm gonna build him up with a piece of foam so you can use any kind of squishy you phone. Even you could, Um actually, what I did is I cut this out of an old, um, memory foam pillow that I don't use, but you can obviously use any kind of home you can buy kind of squares a phone to cut it. So what I want to do is this piece of foam is too long. So I'm going to cut it here at the shoulder because I don't need it to cover his neck. And you give me I'm not being precious about it. I mean, this is gonna be that inside still the inside. So it doesn't matter what it looks like. And then the other thing I'm gonna do, because I'm gonna cut it in half here, Then I will put him on, and I want to trace him. You know, his body comes like this, his finest here. That's the kind of shape that he is. And I'll do the same. It matches on this side. Okay, there we are. And I'm going to cut and in debt into home here so that he's going to sit inside, kind of like a little cost. Okay, So you can see I've got, like, an armature shape. And then in my my fault, I'm just gonna do the same on the other side. Okay? Now I want to test it, so hopefully I can put him in. You can see, got on X hole all the way through in the shape of my amateur. Here we go. You could see he fits inside like that, and then just get so he doesn't fall out. I'm going to use my, my, um, superglue. You can use whatever you have if you've got maybe not white, blue, but hot glue would work. Or wood glue often works well, some some kind of strong glue just to keep him inside his new little body. Okay, excellent. So now that I've got that on, obviously you can see this is gonna be massive. Um, unless I have a bit like a really fat square puppet. This is not finished. So are you Gonna do now is just sculpt, um, with your knife. Whatever night for you can. Even depending on the phone unit use You don't just tear it apart, sculpt it down to kind of the body shape that you want. Okay, so I've got him trimmed down to a bit of a more natural body change. And, of course, whatever shape it is is going to depend on the shape of your puppet. So if you've done a puppet design already, you probably want to match it to that. Okay, so that is the epoxy armature for acclimation. Done. If you did it this way, definitely show a photo, take a photo. I love to see it in the project paint and let us know. Um what your experience? Waas. Um, so now on to our Frankenstein. 14. Building The Body: Alternatives: Okay, So now with that Frankenstein puppet, we have the same goal that we had with the other puppet, which is to build up the center. So what I'm gonna use for this guy's body is just some of this fluffed. And obviously, this is for Christmas. Just big snow. You've used any kind of stuffing or some people, you know, cotton batting that they used for for sewing. Um, you could always wrap it in that as well. So I'm just gonna rip off some of that fluff here, can wrap it around to use a bit more than that. And again, I mean, I'm in my arms out of the way, but remember, you don't want to keep bending them while you work. And again, I'm gonna want to have, um, probably more than I need, And then I will trim it down or squish it down. Okay, That looks pretty good. So I'm going to Same is the other one. Just take some glue. I'm gonna use superglue, but you can use with glue or even fabric glue could work with well, here. And just put it on my armature where I want my cardinal to stick gonna get into stage, you can trim it. You could add more. So I'm not being too careful about where I put this on. Okay, As you can see, unlike the foam, the cotton wool is quite messy, and it's also quite fluffy, so I don't want to leave it like this. And there's no way I could put plastic seen directly onto that. So kind of a few things you could dio. Basically, you want to wrap it up in something so you could use, um, bandage. A bandage like use for medical purposes would work quite well to wrap this guy up. You could also use a thicker ribbon or even strips of scrap fabric if you haven't to wrap him up. Um, even masking tape could work quite well. I probably wouldn't try to use that foil tape or or packing tinged just cause it would. It would be too messy, but you can help me try it. If you're feeling ambitious. One other thing you can do is if you have a balloon quite a tighter balloon, you can use it to wrap Lifeson type. Now I don't have a boom. What I do have is an old pair of nylons. And what happened to these nylons is I put them in a list of genes, and they went a bit green, so I'm not gonna wear them now. And what I would do is just cut off the end of the and I'm gonna add keep a little bit here just so that I can tied at the bottom. Okay, so now I've got a little nylon outfit for him. I'm just gonna cut a hole in the top for his head, and then I'm gonna put it on him like a little outfit. And this is basically the same thing I would do if I was using a balloon. And then I'm also gonna need to cut the whole for his hand. And because it's stretchy. What I want to do is try toe maneuver the nylon around his arm rather than trying to bend his arm through the that island is cause again. It's going to, um, lose some of the integrity and break a lot. I find it quite a bit during this, Steve. Okay, now he's got his his nylon shirt on. Okay, now I've got his shirt on. I can see that he's He could use a bit more stuffing in the front here. He's quite flat. So I'm just gonna add a little more stuffing. And you can do this as you like. Of course, of people balloon. It's going t o work a little bit better than a nine lot in terms of holding me the fourth in place. Very feminine looking suddenly. Okay, I flats into him out a little bit here. Then I wanna do Is tired this at the bottom. I think it's in the back. Okay. And then but a nice kind of body shape. And I'm just gonna trim this here so you can see. Um, if I was wrapping it in a bandage, I would be able to control the shape a lot better city rapid in ribbon or something you might wanna bring in his waist. Or, um, you can always tie this if you've got some threat or something. So I've got a bit of a threat here. What I can do? Tie him where I want a bit of shape, puts it there, or it could make it. But lower. Or I could tie him. You multiple places. Okay, see a bit of shape. You see, I don't get the kind of structure I did when I use the phone, but it's definitely something I can work with if I'm adding maybe a jacket over top or if I building it up with plastic scene, which is definitely something I okay. And now, speaking of thread, which I had there briefly is another thing you could do to build up the body. Or as I'm going to do now, build up a bit on the arms or legs is, um, use string. Sorry, I lost one of my legs there. I rescued him. So, um, I could wrap, have wrapped the whole body in string and just built it up in layers. But I'm just gonna show you on the arms, like, if I wanted, um this is quite been leg. So if I wanted Mawr, um, with on the leg economias use a bit of been of threat and just wrap it over. And you, of course, you could do the same thing with a bandage or rib in, just to give yourself a little bit of extra, um, thickness on the leg. And, of course, if you're using a bandage or if your ribbon is a little bit stiff, You want to be careful, not Teoh. Wrap it so many times that you lose the Steve ended the joint here. But you shouldn't have that problem with string. I thought I was gonna keep propping until I'm satisfied. Okay, so that's what it would look like if I want to wrap it in thread. Um, obviously throws. Uhm this kind of yarn or whatever you have is fine if you're going to be putting on, um, some trousers or something. But if you got if you're trying to put plastic seen here than a ribbon or bandage might be better just because the all the little fluff is gonna make it just that little bit more frustrating to put on the the plastic scene. So this is my, um, Frankenstein amateur Finished. He kind of looks like a little friar. Very cute. And there were 15. The Final Test: Now that you've finished your armature, there is one final test you must complete, and that is theory one legged stand. If your arm attar can stand on one foot without any rigging or support, then you know it's going to work in your animation video. So find a magnetic surface, try it out and take a snapshot of your final completed armature and uploaded into the project area. And then you're finished. And thank you so much for completing this course. I hope that you learned a lot. Definitely. Let me know in the review section. If there's some things that I can change or make better or things you like, I would love to hear from you. So thank you so much again for taking the course. Um, and best of luck in your animating