Birth of Socks

My First Wire Armature Puppet
(Warning: this post is incredibly long and may make those with a chronic fear of reading uncomfortable.)

This curious precocious sock bunny (no relation to the velveteen rabbit) is a, approximately 30 inch tall, fully flexible puppet complete with a wire skeleton I built over the span of my sophomore spring semester. I am very pleased with the results of the finished puppet, though from an outsider's perspective the process could take quite a bit of patience. There were sometimes accidents, which would result in a full day or more of repairing and reinforcing an arm, for example, to make the body part more durable as well as keeping it flexible so that it could be animated with ease. Even with these minor setbacks, with my teacher Andy London's advice and support, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of bringing Socks to life. Being the perfectionist that I am, I remade many parts of my puppet over and over again until they fit my precise specifications. There were times where I would also have to rethink my original blue prints in order to better Sock's movement capabilities. Every instance that this was the case was an excellent learning experience, all of which I plan to keep in mind during my next puppet-ing project.

Sock’s life began as an idea in my sketchbook or rather a plethora of variations on a theme, that theme being Lapin. Some with large noses, slacked jaws, bulbous sized heads, elongated front teeth, even a couple with tiny spectacles and a mustache. Over time I developed a design I felt would best suit the timid and peculiar rabbit I had in mind.

Once the Sock’s appearance was decided I began making blue prints and measurements to estimate how large I wanted my puppet to be. This turned out to be considerably large in comparison to a typically sized puppet around 6 inches in height.

After my desired measurements were set I began the actual construction starting with a wire-frame skeleton. I acquired 4 large spools (a 10-gauge, an 8-gauge and two 16-gauge wire spools). The largest gauge (8-guage) was used to make the torso, neck, pelvis, legs and feet. Though I was worried that the 8-gauge wire would be too massive and limit flexibility I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked perfectly and created a very sturdy bust for the armature torso. The 10-gauge I used to make the smaller yet sturdy arms and the 16-guage was used for the delicate modeling of the hands. To double the strength I twisted the wire over itself twice.
Once the armature was completed the next step was to make “tie-downs”. These are typically the combination of nut, bolt and wing nut attached to each foot of the puppet used to secure it to the ground plane of the set. This prevents unwanted movement of the puppet such as falling down during shooting, which can be catastrophic in stop motion animation. In order to secure the nut in place inside of Sock’s foot I needed to bend the 8-guage wire so that it would fit around the small metal piece precisely. After the fact I glued the wire and nut together using five-minute epoxy. Once the compound dried and the pieces were in place I began building up an exterior layer of plumber’s epoxy in order to both strengthen the bond between nut and wire as well as sculpt the shape of the foot while making sure no epoxy became caught in the hole of the nut.


Once this process was completed I began strengthening the armature for extra precaution. The animation process can wear down a puppet easily and though ideally one would make multiple puppets of the same character I only was making one due to time limitations. In places that did not need a dire amount of flexibility such as the pelvis (excluding the sockets), upper chest and palm of the hand I glued with 5-minute epoxy and then filled with plumbers epoxy until the basic shape of what would be sculpted into the finished body was acquired.

After the armature was finished and met my measurement expectations, modeling of what would be Sock’s finished form could begin. To put a bit of meat on his bones, I created a layer of foam, much like the foam you found in couches, by cutting out considerably thin foam strips and tightly wrapping my armature like a mummy until the desired form was achieved. I did this to the entire body including all extremities excluding the hands.

For the hands I dipped them in liquid latex every 10 minutes in order to achieve maximum flexibility as well as protecting the wire frame beneath. This process took roughly four-six hours to complete the perfect form.

At this point Socks was beginning to take shape; all but what might be the most important part of my puppet – the head. I built up several heads (complete with eye and mouth sockets) out of Sculpty clay and chose the perfect head from the selection I had made. This final head was made of clay, which was later cooked to harden. For future reference I would hollow the clay head before firing and fill the interior filled with tin foil, so that the puppet was not top heavy. However due to the size and sturdiness of my puppet’s neck and overall anatomy, the head was perfectly balanced in relation to the body. As another side note I would not use Sculpty in your future puppet making adventures. It is hardly durable and flakes easily after being cooked.

At long last it was time to add to focal element that made Socks… Socks. I dug through my underwear drawer, acquired socks from friends, started a “Socks for Socks” donation fund, white socks, grey socks, searching frantically for as many socks that I could find. I wanted minor color differences to give him a rugged patchy feel to his fur, as if he were an old stuffed animal that had been played with to death.

When I gathered up all the socks I could ever need (approximately 15 pairs) I started to put the fur into place, tightly sewn on and fastened with fabric glue; even a tiny bit of super glue had its place when direly needed for securing the tiny bits particularly around the head.
As for the ears, I twisted two 8-guage wires together per each ear and tightly secured them to the head by drilling into the upper cranium with Andy London’s help and covering the bottoms with plumber’s epoxy and an extremely powerful glue alloy called “Zip-Kick”. Then just as I had done with the rest of the puppet, I wrapped the ears in thin foam strips and secured the sock fur in place.
My bunny’s cottontail was made with real cotton, a cotton-ball that is, attached to the rump with fabric glue and 5-minute epoxy.

Now Socks was really beginning to take on his finished form. Here he is seen at this stage below without a mouth yet. I used temporary eyes made of clay.

For a practice attempt on the mouth I tried using replaceable mouths for the first test. I simply attached a large grey flap with a wire inside that drooped downward as shown in the picture below with his creator; our first picture together.

However I felt that the replicable mouths I had designed were not working aesthetically nor did they fit my original blue prints and the clay eyes looked amateur and were lacking a realistic touch.

With that in mind, I completely remade the mouth by making a permanent flexible wire upper lip and jaw with interior clay-plastic made details. Again with the help of Andy London we drilled two pairs of holes parallel from one another on either sides of the where the mouth would connect. Then just as the ears I used Zip-Kick and plumber’s epoxy to secure the mouth from breaking.

For the eyes I discovered a family own company, G. Schoepfer Inc. that manufactures a plethora of realistic glass blown doll eyes for reasonable prices. I ordered the 20mm human-style hand blown figure eyes in grey-blue as seen below.

At long last Socks the Bunny was fully completed. He is roughly a month old from today and is in excellent condition. To test out Sock’s flexibility I conducted a quick movement test. Socks is sitting throughout the length of this animation because I primarily wished to test his upper body, arm, hand, neck and ear for their flexing capabilities which proved to be very successful in my opinion. View for yourself.

That's all for the B-b-b-bunny Blog folks. The last I can say is that I can guarantee there will be much more video tests to come and eventually short films, possibly a feature film. In any case, Socks has been born and I intend to use him.