Wac Puppet Progress #4

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Waccoon

Scraps

Trying to continue with the puppet project.  The first set of photos show some tweaks to the head, including standoffs for the cheeks, trimming the cheeks a bit to the correct profile, and reinforcing various parts.  The hair will be shaped with stuffing, so I'll worry about that when the fabric goes on.  Since my new eye assembly is acrylic and I need to be able to get the eye assembly out for servicing, the muzzle is held loosely in place with braces to be wired shut.  I don't know how well this will work in practice, but hey, I've been improvising my way through most of this already.  If something goes wrong later, I'll hack it somehow.

The body has been a problem.  After a number of paper prototypes I came up with a design I liked.  Not being a natural sculptor, getting the form to look nice with the arms in place is a challenge.  I have since found out that this body is to small and narrow for my arm, so I'll have to make a new one to better accommodate the size of the head and provide more clearance for me to angle my wrist downwards.  I love the chest, but the shoulders are too droopy and more complex than they need to be.  Not shown are the wooden planks in the shoulders that allow the arms to attach to the body with a knot of cord.  If you think the chest is overly detailed, keep in mind this will be covered in fabric and a shirt.  With the proper covering in place, it actually looks pretty normal.  Like me in real life, Wac has lost a lot of weight recently so he's more buff than he used to be.  Body and neck v2.0 will begin after the weekend (I've been really sick this week).

Third set shows some details that began before the body.  The hands were surprisingly fun to carve, and as you can see, raccoons must always keep their hands nice and clean.  I'm using braided armature wire so the fingers are poseable.  The thumbs aren't opposable, unfortunately, since no matter how much wire I put in there, they wouldn't hold their position, but that's a small quibble.  The fabric will go on once I make the arms (with heating pipe insulation).  Finally Wac has ears, and I took the liberty to cover them right away.  I'm using anti-pill fleece, and by pure luck I found exactly the colors I wanted (and on a massive sale!), so I have plenty for practice.  These look so nice, I think I'll use them as-is, save for adding the ear fluff.  Stitching the fabric has been easier than I thought, given that they're assembled outside-in and then stretched and reversed over the foam so the seams are on the inside.  They look soooo nice in real life and the photos don't do the colors justice.  I have all the fabric and parts I need (save for the nose) so once I get a new body made and positioned, the fabric, mask, and velcro should go together quickly.  At that point, I'll be prepared to do some high-res beauty shots.

What's not shown in this update is the control box for the eye cables, because I don't have a photo of it fully assembled.  It looks impressive, so it deserves a photo set of its own.  That won't happen until the body is correct and I know how long to cut the cables, so I can show how the control box actually works.

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