Any interest in stop motion type puppets?

[tyrantqueen]

(Obviously, puppets aren't toys, but I didn't think this thread would fit in the kit section either, so here it goes)

I really love the idea of a posable dinosaur. I think the idea of a model that you can pose has so much potential for dioramas.

David Silva's raptors are good, but I like the lifelike appearance that you can get from the latex.

Most people think that puppets always have to be Harryhausen style taildraggers, but I have seen some good modern(ish) interpretations.





I imagine the biggest problem with owning a puppet like this is that the rubber wears out over time:



I imagine it must take an enormous amount of skill to create one that looks good.

Does anyone else share my love of puppets?

[paintingdinos]

Its not the most logical depiction of dinosaurs in cinema, but the puppets from the film franchise Prehysteria are pretty excellent:



Not pictured, but there was also a really great mini Pterosaur.

[tyrantqueen]

Cool, I didn't know about those. It may be my imagination, but they remind a bit of the Kaiyodo Dinoland vinyls, especially the Chasmosaurus.

[Lone Trike]

I love this kind of puppets, too! Always wanted to make one myself. But the internal armature requires a lot of tooling custom metal parts, which I can´t do at the moment. And I havn´t found an alternative yet, maybe 3d printing. But it would be awesome to have one of those for stop motion animation or just for art reference like this one




This was posted by arvalis on deviantart

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Its not the most logical depiction of dinosaurs in cinema, but the puppets from the film franchise Prehysteria are pretty excellent:



Not pictured, but there was also a really great mini Pterosaur.

For the time those came out they were very nice, still not bad at really.  I remember Full Moon was going to sell replicas of them but their toy dept was short lived. 

Cool, I didn't know about those. It may be my imagination, but they remind a bit of the Kaiyodo Dinoland vinyls, especially the Chasmosaurus.

The puppet of "Elvis" the tyrannosaur really looks like the Kaiyodo Bellowing Rex too. 

[ImADinosaurRARR]

It is honestly a dream of mine to make a stop-motion puppet dinosaur. There are quite a few places you can get armature parts, like animationsupplies.net and animationtoolkit.co.uk, though they're quite expensive.

Once you have the armature, all you really need is a mold that can fit it with some latex and your golden. Here's a video of a guy that worked with Ray Harryhausen making dinos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_oBI385qSE

[tyrantqueen]

IIRC, wasn't Arthur Hayward the artist who worked on the Invicta line?

There's a good video on how the characters for the Primal Rage arcade (and later video) game were created

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=132yf17fiHc

I wonder what happened to those puppets. I hope Atari still has them.

[tyrantqueen]

I love this kind of puppets, too! Always wanted to make one myself. But the internal armature requires a lot of tooling custom metal parts, which I can´t do at the moment. And I havn´t found an alternative yet, maybe 3d printing. But it would be awesome to have one of those for stop motion animation or just for art reference like this one



This was posted by arvalis on deviantart

Wow, what a beauty *drool*

[Lone Trike]

It is honestly a dream of mine to make a stop-motion puppet dinosaur. There are quite a few places you can get armature parts, like animationsupplies.net and animationtoolkit.co.uk, though they're quite expensive.

Once you have the armature, all you really need is a mold that can fit it with some latex and your golden. Here's a video of a guy that worked with Ray Harryhausen making dinos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_oBI385qSE

Good to know, that there are some specialized supply stores. Thanks for sharing!
I visited the hardware store today, just because I was curious, what kind of useful parts I would be able to get there. Surprisingly they have a bunch of parts, that could be used for such a project. Even tapped metal balls for the joints, threaded rods and so on.
For the skin, I would probably use foam for the muscles and brush it over with silicone. My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

[Dinoreplicas]

For the skin, I would probably use foam for the muscles and brush it over with silicone. My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

I've wanted to make a jointed rex from the first moment I saw Arvalis' post on Deviantart.
Your choice of cover materials seems spot on. Also worth considering is finding the correct paint for flexible surfaces.

[Lone Trike]

For the skin, I would probably use foam for the muscles and brush it over with silicone. My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

I've wanted to make a jointed rex from the first moment I saw Arvalis' post on Deviantart.
Your choice of cover materials seems spot on. Also worth considering is finding the correct paint for flexible surfaces.

Yeah, that Rex is pretty impressive! I think it was made by some former Hollywood artist (forgot the name unfortunately).
My mold making supplier has some paint options for silicone. I think it´s called "Psycho Paint". Though it has to be thinned with Toluol, which is pretty nasty stuff.

[tyrantqueen]

My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

That, and the smell. Liquid latex smells like a dead animal.

[tyrantqueen]

Here's a tutorial on how to make a Acrocanthosaurus puppet from wire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBezERwHwZI

And an awesome piece of animation of a Triceratops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUF3--uQl-M

[Mirroraptor]

About this...infact Horizon's JP T.rex is the prop replica from Phil Tippett's stop-motion model.(I'm not sure if the Raptor is also Phil Tippett style)
I'm trying to find the stop motion Galimimus of JP right now, but just few photos of it.

[Dinoreplicas]

Here's a tutorial on how to make a Acrocanthosaurus puppet from wire.

Good finds. Enjoyed the Acro make.

[The Atroxious]

My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

That, and the smell. Liquid latex smells like a dead animal.

Not in my experience. I have dealt with both quite a lot, and latex just smells akin to other plant extracts such as toluene. Dead animals smell like one of two things: on a good day, meat. On a bad day, bacterial rot.

For what it's worth, I actually really like the smell of latex, but it can get overpowering really quickly.

[Takama]

IIRC, wasn't Arthur Hayward the artist who worked on the Invicta line?

Indeed he was one of them. Though he did not make them all (I dont think)

[Lone Trike]

Here's a tutorial on how to make a Acrocanthosaurus puppet from wire.

Awesome stuff! Thanks! The part about the skin texturing was especially interesting.

My fear with latex is, that it deteriorates over time. Though it´s much cheaper than silicone.

That, and the smell. Liquid latex smells like a dead animal.

Not in my experience. I have dealt with both quite a lot, and latex just smells akin to other plant extracts such as toluene. Dead animals smell like one of two things: on a good day, meat. On a bad day, bacterial rot.

For what it's worth, I actually really like the smell of latex, but it can get overpowering really quickly.

Can´t say anything about the smell, since I´ve never worked with latex so far. Only thing I´m pretty sure of, is that toluene or toluol is not a plant extract! It´s a byproduct of processing crude oil into gasoline as far as I know.

[Newt]

Uncured latex smells like ammonia.


I'm interested in stop-motion and in sculpting dinosaurs, so I'm definitely interested in stop-motion. It has occurred to me that, if I should ever get my act together and complete and mold some resin dinos, I could cast stop-motion dino puppets in the same molds.