Kong Puppet Finished!

 

God am I glad to be done with this guy

  

Also, thank goodness that "good enough" is the motto of this project!

To review:
doubled wire armature
2 part plumbers epoxy for chest and pelvis and foot
sculpey 3 very thin over tinfoil for head, and finger thickening, and replacement mouths
eyebrows and eyelids (and pupils) will be made of playdough
liquid latex with acrylic paint for hands
body made of foam, originally spray glued on but that didn't hold so now partially hot gun glued
clothes sewn  (uff!)
undershirt (in the little pic you can see it) I ironed it to try and get that pleated look
collar of the undershirt I just rolled up some fabric and hot glued it on
bow tie and jacket buttons are sculpey with sharpie (I didn't want to go dig out my paints) glued on

I went with foam and cloth because I thought it would be fast and light(the foam was fast, but it's taken this long because I was not interested in doing the sewing), because I didn't want to deal with the black arts of foam latex (currently this project lives in 1 grocery bag in the closet, I don't have a garage for an extra oven, and wanted to go cheap instead of investing in chemicals and molding supplies), and because I didn't want him to appear all of one material.  If I do another project I will definitely do some kind of mold and cast, it was way funner doing the sculpting than it was doing the sewing, I think I would get through it faster, also this guy is going to boil like crazy (guess it'll just be practice to try and only manipulate him from behind).

So technically I can start animating now! Yay!!

except I don't have a set yet. But theoretically the set's gonna be fast because I've always planned for the "good enough" mentality to really take over on the set, specifically, it's gonna be cardboard boxes with windows drawn on for the city. Still, it has to be strong enough to support him. Shouldn't take to long right? ... 

And then animation will just fly, because there's not layering or redoing with stopmotion. So it should be quick, especially since I only made 1 puppet and don't trust him to last so won't be doing multiple takes. So I can still finish within the year right? (hope so)

 Also, bought this beast (that's my 2 3/4 year old inspecting it) and working on my banjo and mandolin skills. So I am becoming a one man string band.