Eye Sizing

[Twitch92]

Hello again friends. I'm looking into buying some glass eyes for some puppets (puppet project patterns). Based on the size of these puppets, what size (in mm) eyes would be most proportionate to the head? I would just buy some to experiment but the cost is just too high for trial and error. Any thoughts? Thanks a bunch!

 

[D'Snowth]

It mainly depends on what kind of character you're working on, as the size of the eyes (and the pupils) can have a great deal of effect on how old or young the character looks - the smaller the eyes, the older it looks, while the bigger the eyes, the younger it looks.

 

[practicecactus]

Yeah, that's really one no one can answer for you. You're just going to have to determine what you want your character to look like and make judgements for yourself, or show the forum exactly what size everything is and post as much info as possible.

Try doing some sketches how you want the finished product to look, then make some scale measurements to determine what size eye it should be or at least as close as it could be. Puppets are hard to get exactly to the original sketch.
Or even making rough templates for the size of the head could determine if you need to shrink or enlarge the head pattern to make the eyes look bigger or smaller.

 

[HauntedPuppet]

The easiest thing to do would be to take the puppet head or partially completed puppet to wherever you are buying the eyes from (assuming you are not ordering online) and try positioning a few glass eyes of various sizes on the head as a mock-up.

This will quickly help you determine which size to use as well as color and pupil size etc.

Peace