My Monday

Trying to multi-task. You can see the solder wire armature minus a leg. Boo hoo!! I had the nautilus prop out too but didn't get around to working on it until the evening. Jose's dragon sculpture is just above my armature. Looks pretty good. He's developing into quite the artist. Das m'boy!!


Monday's are pretty hectic around. This one was no exception. The afternoon was particularly busy. I was trying to do some work on my stop motion figure's armature which, when completed, will be a Bigfoot. Why? I don't know. I seem to be interested in them lately. My goal was to begin animating my figure for this evening's class.

Normally the armature for most any stop motion animation figure is made using specially designed, machined parts but they are rather expensive. That's what lies beneath the clay figures you see in Wallace and Gromit movies, for instance. An inexpensive but effective alternative is using soldering wire to form the metal understructure and soldering the parts together. Soldering is an art to itself and I'm still not comfortable with it... yet.

Well, I was trying to finish soldering the limbs when a leg broke off. I didn't have much time remaining before I had to pick up the kids. It was one of those temple throbbing moments one has from time to time. I had to set the figure aside and accept the fact he wouldn't be completed in time for class. Soldering in a hurry can cause owies. Muy malo! In desperation I started adding hair to the head and shoulders so that at least I could possibly animate him through some close ups.


My incomplete Bigfoot. Alas.

As it turned out class was canceled for the evening so it all worked out, I guess. Still, I would have like to have animated him. Patience.