Books on Animatronic Puppet Building?

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Hiho. As a hobby, I have built hand puppets since I was five years old. At twenty, I've gotten considerably better. Now, I'd like to try my hand at building more complex creatures. I really want to start a career in film (I know, it's a crapshoot, but we all have dreams), and having a portfolio is always an important asset.

Are there any good books I can get ahold of that could direct me?

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Bumpaty bumpaty boo!

 

[charlie bird]

Sorry, I couldn't find any books ,but I did find this dvd on making animactronics .I haven't purchased it ,but I'm sure it's a good dvd.You can also see his youtube channel
here it is http://www.willettfx.com/animatronics.html
I hope this helps ,I'll keep looking

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Thank-you, good sir. I'll check it out.

 

[practicecactus]

Hmm, there might not be much in the way of books on the subject but you do have the internet at your disposal. There's plenty of behind the scenes goodness on youtube. There's even a few episodes of Movie Magic, which featured a few animatronics specific episodes. That show had a big influence on me growing up and highly recommend it.
Because animatronics is an artistic blend of mechanical engineering, sculpture, puppetry, automatation, and just the fact that it's an industry specific thing to film and tv [ignoring static display types] I think your best bet is researching companies. Stan Winston Studios' website is still up and was already out of date before the formation of Legacy but look into what companies did what, which particularly tickle your interest and have a look around at stuff they have.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Check out the videos at this link - http://www.fxsupply.com/videos/videos.html - I haven't dealt with that company or seen most of those videos myself, but they might be useful.

An older video that was supposed to be very good is "Mechanics for SPFX Make-up and Mechanical Puppetry". It was originally released on VHS, but I'm not sure about DVD.

I hope that helps!