MaxPuppet

From Simreal

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We wanted a talking head in a jar, so I mad Max! Actually, Sara Tallarovic sculpted the head so I thank her for that work.

Most of the molding and casting details are pretty generic, described (for example) in SeveredHead, so I'll skip them here. The interesting bits are the mechanism. Sadly, I don't have nearly enough photos of the process... I was lazy in 2003.

Eyes

The eyes are roller balls from liquid deoderant. Really.

I cut off the top of the deoderant bottle below the ball section, so the natural "socket" was preserved. You can pop the ball out then, for painting or other work.

On this eye, I simply drilled a hole in the balls and glued a steel wire into them. The end of the wire was bent into a loop.

The wire I used was welding wire, available for cheap at all welding supply stores. The loop was made with round-jaw pliers. I grabbed the end of the wire and curled it into a circle. Then I grabbed the base of this circle and bent the loop back a bit so it was centered on the wire. Easier done than said.

I wanted Max to have that long-dead look in his eyes, so I just painted a spot in the center of the eye. For a realistic eye, you can cut off a section of the ball and replace it with a lifelike eye. I like to use hot-glue, but epoxy works well too.

An excellent source of all types of eyes, including human, is VanDykes Taxidermy (found in the SupplierLinks).

Anyway, once I had built the eye I popped it back into its socket and hot-glued it all into the skull.

To make room in the skull for the socket, I used a flex-shaft tool (like a dremel) and a routing bit to cut out the eye sockets on a 4th class Bucky skull.

Mechanism

The mechanism consists of bent wires and control cables from radio controlled airplanes. Springs were used to keep things centered.

It's kinda tricky working it all out, and the photos aren't much help. Sorry!

The cables were routed out of the skull through small holes.

The control system consisted of a bar that the cables ran through, and rings attached to the cables so the operator could pull on them.

I also ran springs and a control cable to the jaw of the skull. The cable pulled the jaw open, the spring pulled it back closed.

Flesh

First, I made a latex mold around the sculpted puppet head that Sara made.

I painted the face of this mold with hot-pour PVC in a thin layer. I then poured some more into the front and set the mechanised skull into place in the PVC and let it cool a bit. This locked the skull into place.

When placing the skull, make sure the eyes and mouth line up! I did several test-fits first, and marked the mold and skull with a permanent marker so I could quickly re-align them.

Closing the mold and taping it together, I finished the pour, encasing the entire skull in squish (my pet name for hot-pour PVC).

Note that the hot plastic warped my latex mold, ruining it for future use (note: use silicon) and made the head a bit wobbly.

I then superglued some fluffy hair onto Max's head with super-thin glue.

Squish is very fragile and doesn't like to flex and bend, so I fashioned thin eyelids for it using latex. These were glued into place onto the face and the eyelid blinking wires with superglue.

I applied some makeup to Max and then put him in a jar!

All in all, I was only semi-satisfied with Max. The eyelids were not very good (I still don't know how to make good animated eyelids) and the squish impeded the free movement of the eyes.

I hope to try again someday using better materials (e.g. silicon).