Moving Eyes Mechanism work in progress

[practicecactus]

Thought I'd link this here because you can still kinda see things working, at this stage, before I add the eyeblink, which will obscure some things from view.

See it here on my Puppethub.

I really wanted to add an eyebrow movement, but making this as small and tight as possible, I didn't leave myself much room, the way I wanted to operate the eyebrows and have them move. Maybe one day , when I make it all bigger. Moving eyes with a blink should be plenty of character for a puppet anyway.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Very nice! That's a great piece of engineering.

 

[crazy chris]

LOVE IT!

i want one! hee hee

cc

 

[shtick]

I'd buy one.

 

[Puppetainer]

Dude. I wanted to take a stab at moving and blinking eyes. I ended up just going with blinking eyes and actually my first pass at those didn't end too well either. Worked well until actually installed into the puppet. Now it's sort of like the puppet had a stroke. Only one eye closes and not all the way. I'm sure I'll have another go at them but after looking at your VERY impressive and rather elaborate mechanism I may hold off a bit. Need to work myself back up to something that ambitious.

This is my rather long winded way of saying, "Amazing work! Great job!"

 

[practicecactus]

Cheers guys.
I should point out it is very slow going, and have redone every part on it at least once.
Currently looking for tubing to run the wire cable down to a control joystick as the one I bought isn't gonna cut the mustard.

 

[Puppetainer]

You can get some very soft and flexible tubing for pretty cheap at your local pet store. In the fish aquarium supplies they sell rolls of it for about $3.00 I've used it for a variety of things. If you're looking for something a little more solid you can find some good plastic tubing in the plumbing section of Home Depot for fairly cheap as well. Good luck!

 

[The Muppaphone]

Looks Great

Looks great! I am very impressed and oh so jealous

 

[Knucklehead]

Right on!

Thanks so much for sharing ! that's what it's all about...
can you provide a breakdown of what kind of parts were used ?
did you cannibalize something .. A RC car?

 

[practicecactus]

Fraid not. All the parts are scratch built. You'd have to ask the animatronic pros where to get all those proper little fittings and pieces.