So Much Furry Fluffiness (Experimenting With Furry Puppet Making)

After much latex and fur I finished the border collie puppet yesterday! And today I have been photographing the result. Making this was a challenge - incredibly fun at some points, and incredibly frustrating at others (this always seems to be the way with stop motion though). This is my first attempt at creating a fur covered puppet and I have learnt so much from making it. I want to make another furry puppet soon as I want to learn from the mistakes I made on this one and put my new knowledge into practice. 

I painted the claws with a layer of  latex, tinted dark grey with a few drops of acrylic ink. I then started with the paws and worked my way up, as I applied the fur in layers and so copied the way my own dog's fur is layered on top of itself. I had some white faux fur spare which I used for the white markings. I cut the fur off at the base in strips, so one end of the strands of fur was aligned. I then painted latex tinted white onto the paw and placed the fur, aligned edge down, into the latex, angling it in the same direction as my dog's fur grows. I then used a cocktail stick to press the edge of the fur more securely into the latex. I repeated this process all the way up the leg, until I reached the part where her fur turns black. This process took a fair amount of time and was very fiddly. I had to be very gentle with the fur and sort of coax into the right place.

I didn't have any black faux fur so I tried to dye some of the white fur. However, I didn't have any black dye. So I tried dyeing it with black acrylic ink. It took an age to dry and then it had become a far rougher texture, as opposed to the sleek white fur. I didn't have anything else to use though and since I'm trying to make this on a pretty tight budget, I had to go with it. I then layered it up in the same way I did for the white fur, except I used latex tinted dark grey. I used different coloured latex so just in case you could see through the fur at any points it would be less noticeable. I worked my way around the whole body, adding fur, the dog was looking incredibly puffy and fluffy at this point!

A rather unfortunate issue had arisen though: the black on the fur was rubbing off!! My hands were covered in black from touching the puppet, and it had all smudged onto the once pristine white fur of the dog, making it look all mucky. So, lesson number one: don't cheap out and either buy the right fur or buy some proper dye!!

Now, this is where disaster struck. I had finished putting all the fur on the body except for the back. The legs were all splayed out as I had been applying fur to them. I then tried to move the legs and..... well.... they were pretty darn difficult to move. Turns out the whole body was pretty difficult to move. Obviously this is game over for a stop motion puppet, as being animatable is well, kind of important! 

So what I believe the issue was is that, first of all, I put way too much foam over the armature. I knew you had to take into consideration that the fur would make the puppet bigger, so you had to reduce the size of the foam accordingly, but I didn't realise just how much you had to reduce it. In retrospect I should have only applied foam to the bulkiest parts of the body, so the body, neck and top of the legs, but even to those parts, not much foam was needed. Fur adds a lot of bulk.

As well as this, I put too much latex on when applying the fur. I thought more latex would be good, as it would hold the fur securely in place. However, this just cured into a rock solid layer that impeded the movement of the puppet. I needed to have more faith in the latex's ability to secure the fur and I needed to take a much more refined and reserved approach to the application.

I had been applying the fur in very long strands, as I just cut it off its backing at its base and used the whole length of the fur. So in many places, I had applied far longer fur than was needed, with the intention of trimming it to the right size once all the fur had been applied. What I should have done, was cut the fur to the right length initially, as this would have prevented me using too much fur and would have helped reduce the amount of latex I applied.

I was not to be defeated, however. 

 I got my scissors and began trimming fur. I removed areas of thick latex from around the joints. I cut away some of the excess foam as I could patch any exposed areas up later. After I had done all this, the puppet was able to move!! Woohoo!!

Now, although you could animate the puppet, it would have issues because its range of movement isn't as much as it should have. But if I re-made it with the changes I described, I believe this problem would be solved. But since at one stage it was all looking rather bleak, I am happy with this outcome for my first attempt at using fur.

I finished applying fur to the dog's back and neck and patched up any newly exposed areas of foam.

I realised that although I was applying the fur in the same way my dog's fur is layered, I wasn't getting the same effect on my puppet where some layers are far more pronounced than others, such as on the neck where the fur is grouped in overlapping V shapes. I think the way to achieve this look would be to sculpt the foam in these V shaped layers.

I then moved onto the head, where it called for much more precise application of the fur. Doing this part taught me how precisely I could apply the fur, as I was just applying it in little tufts, rather than strips. I was also cutting it to size before applying it.

The eyes are white beads with the iris painted onto them with acrylic ink. The hole in the beads acts as the pupil, and to animate the eyes moving, you can stick a needle in the hole to move the bead about. When sculpting the initial clay head I should have  made the eye sockets slightly bigger, to allow for the beads getting bigger once painted, as their fit was slightly too tight.

Everything was now complete, so I got a tiny comb and gently brushed out any of the fur which had not been caught in the latex, making the dog look neater.

So my lessons were:

Less foam
Less latex
Cut fur to size before application
Use the right type of fur
Acrylic ink should not be used for dyeing
When sculpting the foam take into consideration how you want the fur to be layered

Although a little rough around the edges, I think this puppet has a charm to it and it was a good practice puppet, as I really have learnt so much from making it.