Bee security guard
ResearchThe bumble bee is a very oblivious and slightly dim character. I wanted the way he looked to reflect that. He will be made from a simple shape with basic limbs and very little, if any, facial expression. There isn't any difficult movement required of this character, so I won't worry too much about utilising materials intended for that.
My intention is to use needle felting to skin the bee because of the qualities of this material. The fuzzy, soft aesthetic suit the character perfectly. I will attempt a series of maquettes to discover a way to use this material successfully. |
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Design
Maquetting
This first test was made from a wire armature with ultra light sculpey core, sponge and finally needle felted into. Due to the core being made from a rigid material, it couldn't be felted into, this made the skinning fairly loose around those places. When animated, it could easily rip apart, revealing the seams of the felting.
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Neoprene core skinned with tights that had been needle felted onto. The aesthetic of this maquette isn't quite what I wanted, the skin of the puppet felt very separated from the armature and core, which made animating it difficult. I also found that the feet need to be longer but thinner. As they are, they are fairly difficult to bend. The length of the limbs works fine for what the character needs to do. The length of the 'hands' should be longer in order to carry an object.
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I briefly tested using hollow fibre for the entirety of the bee (left pic), which would then be covered in wool, but soon realised that when wound tightly, the hollow fibre allowed for practically no movement.
The two images on the right are testing if varying types of neoprene can be needle felted into directly. These would be used as the firm core of the puppet. |
The above pictures are simply testing which method of skinning would better suit the bee's legs. They are both made using mueller wrap, but the shape of the leg on the right has been built up using foam. Everyone I asked felt that the leg on the left worked better, as it's thinner and contrasts more with the rest of the character, causing it to look more appealing.
This final maquette animated nicely and the materials allowed for the desired movements. The final puppet will basically be a remake of this prototype but with a couple of slight alterations. For the bee's wings, I tested using mueller around wire, but decided it looked to chunky. The wings in the test are made using two pieces of acrylic with yellow mueller sandwiched in the middle. The test is only 2 frames looped, but works absolutely fine. |
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