Painting Eyes

[SJohnson]

Painting Puppet Eyes

I saw some of them behind the scenes clips on swazzle. One of them showed one of the builders painting the pupils on the eyes.

How do they do this with enough precision for the eyes to be in the right place? Do they draw on it first? How is it measured? Does one paint the eyes before or after they're set in?

Hey Shtick,

I'm new to the forum, but I noticed that you had a question about how we paint our puppet's eyes. Here’s how to do it:

Save the eye painting for last. To get the placement trace circles onto butcher paper and stick them onto the ping pong balls (trace a quarter for the iris and a nickel for for the pupil). Use the paper cut outs to get the placement. Once they’re in the right spot, carefully trace the circle with a pencil. Next use a fine brush and paint the iris, take your time - this sometimes takes a few coats. Once that’s dry, trace the pupil and, paint it. Add a small white dot as the final touch. I'm posting some behind the scenes pictures on my blog right now, I haven't gotten to the eye painting yet, but it's coming... Here is my blog address if you want to check it out: http://swazzle.com/blogs/puppet101.html.

I hope you found this helpful. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Good luck,
Sean