Blinking eyes and moving eyebrows

[Torarin]

did anyone ever own the animal puppet from fp,inside it had a blinking mech.when i was a kid i never really thougth about it,but that was really clever,i wonder if that's how it really worked.

I do, but it's really not good enough. It's just a plate rigged on top of the mouthplate, and you push down to move the eyelids. Unfortunatly that makes them impossible to move if you have his mouth open.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Here are 2 helpful pics of moving eyebrows.

Please note that the pics are NOT made by me, just 2 pics i found over at the old forum way back.

http://muppets.zapto.org//images/eyemech/animal_eye_mech.jpg

http://muppets.zapto.org//images/eyemech/siggler1.jpg


I hope it helps you a bit.

I do believe that Terry Angus drew those up, and THANK YOU For posting those!! I've been looking for 'em!!

Foz

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Buck, what do you think of the ability to control the blinking eye movement in the method shown in photos and diagrams shared by BorkBork? It looks rather easy to manipulate with the finger glove thingy built in under the head, don't you think?

lol, I actually hate that method, but it's really a matter of personal preference.

There's a puppet I am using for my project "Bear Town" that was built (by someone else) with exactly this type of mechanism and it's very annoying because you really have to stop working the mouth in order to pull the control correctly. You can actually see this on some TV shows - if the eyes/eyelids only move when the puppet's mouth is not moving chances are it has this type of mechanism in it's head.

These types of controls can be OK if they are properly fitted to the puppeteer's hand. If the control has to be inside the head I'd recommend designing a "trigger" along the lines of what Torarin described above.

 

[fishbone]

hmmm,maybe like cousin skeeter

 

[fishbone]

whats that plastic shell over the skull of the puppet,any one....any one..

 

[Puppetplanet]

Plastic! ha ha ha ha ha..... ahem..... sorry.

 

[fishbone]

freak...

 

[Fozzie Bear]

freak...

you called?

oh.

 

[fishbone]

i said freak,...not dork... just fool'n dumbass

 

[Puppetplanet]

awww, that wasn't very nice.