Blinking eyes and moving eyebrows

[fishbone]

hey,all you pro builders, i need a sure fire way to make eyes blink &eyebrows ,i need to know what materials i need to go out & get,home depo shopping list ,how to construct the mech. in side the head of foam,please pro's only or ppl w/ exp.no geusses.remote control eyes too if you know please!!!????

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Take a look at Mike Brose's Figure Making Can Be Fun website. Under "Fun Stuff" he has a tutorial on making moving eyes and eyebrows for Ventriloquist Dummies. The same techniques can be adapted for puppets.

A good place to look for more information would be Chris Hillman's Animatronics Links Page.

 

[fishbone]

buck,your the beaver,do you have a method you could share?manual or remote control? i won't use it for evil

 

[BorkBork]

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.

 

[Puppetplanet]

Oh my goodness! Thats so cool! I'm not sure I'm ready for that stage yet, but I would love to give it a try!

 

[Torarin]

just if anyone wanted to know how the muppet performers really operate those eye mechanic muppets, couse I tried one once. The "trigger" is actually a handle like the one you might have on top of a spade. And it's not "hanging" from the top of the head like on many designs, it's laid straight down, coming from the nose, with the handle pointing towards the back head. So when you put your hand in it, the handle is on top of the mouthplate, and you put your fingers on top of the handle. To move the eyelids, eyebrows or whatever, you pull the handle back towards the back of the head with your fingers, so that instead of pointing straight pointing at the nose part of the puppet, your fingers are bent, pointing down at the mouth plate. This works well, couse you are able to move the both the mouth and eyes at once.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Many performers prefer blink/eye movement to be controlled by a cable control that is not actually inside the puppet's head but rather built in to an arm rod or hangs below the puppet's body. I've often found mechanisms inside a puppet's head to be cumbersome unless they are really well made. More often than not they don't get used a lot by the puppeteer because they end up being too much trouble.

 

[Puppetplanet]

More often than not they don't get used a lot by the puppeteer because they end up being too much trouble.

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?

-Michele

 

[fishbone]

that helps alot,man.... i love you guys,not bad for a bunch of nerf wranglers.

 

[fishbone]

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.