Ball & Socket Armatures - Finished

      After several weeks of work I've finally finished making my new ball and socket armatures. My plan is to replace the aluminium wire armatures that are currently in my 'Roy' and 'Elle' puppets. This should make them more resilient and professional. You can read about my aluminium wire armatures HERE.
The two armatures featured below follow identical designs but have different proportions to suit the male and female characters. I've wanted to make  full ball and socket armatures for a long time and I really pleased with how these turned out. I got a little trigger happy with my camera so expect lots of pictures.

'Roy' Male Ball & Socket Armature

First of all we have Roy's new armature. He's build from a mixture of steel and K&S square brass tubing. It has 24 points of articulation that are controlled by 17 screws around the body for tension adjustments.

He has a double ball and socket waist and sing ball jointed head, neck, shoulders, arms, hips, legs and ankles. His elbows, knees and toes and hinge joints.

       I tried to position the figure in interesting, dynamic poses but by the time I got to that last picture my creativity fizzled and I went for the cheesy 'whats that in the distance' pose. I kind of like it, plus his white hands make him look like a really skinny mime artist.
The puppet wasn't tied down to the floor for these pictures. He's just balancing by himself. The feet have a M3 nuts in the toe to allow the character to be bolted to the set. Just like in my wire armatures the K&S allows the puppet to be disassembled. The feet and hands slide off for maintenance and repairs. The hands are made from aluminium wire with a Milliput palm. You can read about how I make puppet hands HERE.

The turn around picture above shows the armature from various angles. click the image to embiggen!

'Elle' Female Ball & Socket Armature

Now we move on to the female armature for 'Elle'. This was more challenging to make due to her slender physique. The hinge joints for the elbows and knees are made from a thinner steel to save as much space as possible.

I tried to pose the armature to give it a more feminine vibe. If ,like my brother Josh, you find yourself thinking  'thats one sexy lookin armature' then I think you need to get out more.
Both armatures have K&S tubing soldered onto the hips. These act as rig points just in case the puppet needs external support. ( For example if a character is jumping or running and needs to be held off the ground.)

The biggest difference in this armature is the feet. 'Elle' wears high heels and her feet are much smaller than 'Roy's'. Its always very challenging building things to be smaller. To get around this problem I made a new ankle joint that wound fit inside her small feet. Because she's wearing heels there's no toe joint but there is an M3 nut for tie downs.

In the picture above I was going for a casual sitting down look, rather than 'I hurt my knee'. You be the judge.

Just like before, click the image to embiggen this cromulent turnaround picture!

Comparison Shots

Finally he's some comparison shots so you can see the differences between the two armatures.

Below I photographed them standing next to the wire puppets. Hopefully this shows how they fit inside the characters. My next stage is to start bulking out the armatures with foam and casting them inside new silicone limbs to make 'Roy & Elle Mark II'

That's all for today. Hope you found this post interesting.
Stay tuned for more developments.

Nathan.