A robot puppet

[Little's Creatures]

Hey everybody I just finished a robot puppet. There was some sewing here but most of the puppet was actually made from two small bathroom trash cans I had found in the trash. This puppet just got shipped out to Texas they sent me a drawing and I built it out of what I had oh and by the way the nose is rigged with an LED.

Well let me know if you have any questions on this build. I would be glad to share.

On and please let me know if you think it embodies the character of the drawing. Thanks everyone

Little's Creatures

[Ashes]

That is so cute! ^-^ Great job

[TheCretin]

Ahh!! Its too adorable!!

[Ranilt]

I am speachless! This is amazing!

[SummerThought]

thats awesome!

[Create and Destroy]

pretty cool..though one day we will have little things like that actually walking around and doing stuff...then they'll rise up and take over the world.

RoB

[drseussfanatic]

So adorable and amazing! WOW!

[bzarrr]

is this before or after the apes rule the planet?

pretty cool..though one day we will have little things like that actually walking around and doing stuff...then they'll rise up and take over the world.

RoB

[Crazy_Lady1234]

aww!

[Rec]

GAHHHHH I love it so much!

tutorial?

[superliz]

It is soooooooooooooooooo neat!!! Great job!

[Little's Creatures]

GAHHHHH I love it so much!

tutorial?

Ok I will do my best to give you a tutorial. I don't have photos of the project throughout the steps but honestly this was not to complicated just time consuming.

You need:
Two small trash bins
Some small hard plastic cups
a sheet of foam core
Some black felt
Black flex tubing
Black pipe insulation
Glue gun
Contact cement
Metalic spray paint
ping pong ball
LEDs/battery/wiring/switch
Dremel/cutting bits
creativity

[Little's Creatures]

Creating the body:

Take one of the trash bins. Take the top of the trash can and we will start with that piece. Find a old CD and trace that size circle on the trash can place it in the middle this will be your hole for your arm to go through. Cut that circle out and then sand it down so it is smooth. Now take the bottom of the trash bin and cut the bottom out completely(I also removed a couple inches to shorten the trashbin) Then about an 1 1/2" down from the bottom drill a hole on either side this will be for you flex tubing to go in. The hole will need to be somewhere between a nickel and a quarter. Down forget to sand down the cuts you made in the bottom as well.

Now take the body trashbin outside. We are about to spray paint it all up. Spray some primer and allow that to dry. Then once it is dry come back and paint your robot whatever metal color you want. Rustoleum has some really nice metal spray paints you can buy. It has a lot of heavy flake in it.

Once that has all dried bring the body pieces back it and glue the bottom and top of the trash can together. Let that dry and we can put it aside till later.

[Little's Creatures]

The head:

This will be a little tricky to explain without pictures but I will do my best. Feel free to ask questions.

Next take your other trash bin. This time take the top of the trash bin and cut half of it off right down the middle. My trash bin was slightly oval so I cut it in middle the longway.(hope that makes sense)

Then take your bottom of your trash bin and you can do this anyway you want to make your robot personalized to you. But for this robot because I was going off of the drawing they sent this is the way I did it. I cut some holes in the side of the trash bin the skinny way and I measured and drew lines for the length and the diameter of the cup for where to cut the holes.

Be very careful at this stage of the build to not cut off to much and be sure the holes are symmetrical. Make sure the cups fit in the holes you cut nice and snug. Now figure out where you want the nose to be and drill a hole big enough for two wires to go through. Once you have made all those cuts sand them out. Now before you run out to paint everything I need you to do a couple of things. Take out your sheet of foamcore and place both your trash bin top and bottom on the foamcore so you can trace around them to find out how big your mouth plate should be. This way we can work on the mouth plate while you paint is drying. SO like I said trace around the trashbin if you are confused as to what to trace look at the robot photo I have, to see where the mouth is.

Now that you have done that take the cups for the eyes the top and bottom of the trash bin and paint away same as before.

We will move on to the next post for the mouth construction.

[Little's Creatures]

Mouth plate:

This is one of those steps that may be hard to explain with out photos but once again I will do my best.

Go back to your traced out shapes on the foamcore and cut those out using an exacto blade. Now that you have cut those out place them on top of each other so that they match(round side to round side, flat to flat) Now take a piece of gaffer's tape or gorilla tape or whatever super strong tape you have around. Tape the flat side together while they are flat on each other. Be sure to not have any tape on the side cause it will hinder movement of the mouth. Now what you should have is a piece of foamcore that sort of resembles a mouth. If you open it up is should complete itself into a sort of oval shape(depending on the shape of the trashbin)Now with it open and flat chalk around a piece of (color of your choice)felt to get that shape. Cut it out and glue it to the inside of your mouth plate.

Then I like to make a grip to make the puppet easier to puppeteer and to help isolate the lower jaw movement for a better looking puppet performance.

Grips can be made all sorts of ways I have done several different ways over my time of building puppets. Also everytime I get to use someone elses puppet they have all sorts of different things going on inside. Here are some ways you can do it. Choose what you like best.

Elastic straps for the top of the hand and one on the bottom for the thumb.

Little strips of cardboard flat against the mouth plate to grip on to

Foamcore wrapped with scrap cloth that goes around your four fingers and a small loop on the bottom for your thumb.

A carved piece of foam that your fingers slide into.

Literally thousands of options here. Once you have finished your grips your mouth plate is ready to be added to your puppet.

Next we will talk about building the neck tube and installing your mouth plate.

[Little's Creatures]

Ok so we are getting closer to finishing this puppet.

Take your cups that you spray painted and place them in the hole you cut for them in the top of the head piece. I used 5 min epoxy to really make sure these didn't come out but you could use hot glue. I used some gorilla tape to hold the cups in place till they were fully dry. I then cut out some circles of foam core the same size as the diameter of the inside of the cup and glued those in place using hot glue. Some felt pad black circles and BAM the eyes are done. QUICK tip on eyes make the pupils slightly cross eyed this will help the puppet have a focal point and the end product will have a lot more charm.Then I wired up my LED nose through the hole we drilled earlier.

Wiring up LEDs are not to tricky. I found this great tutorial on how to do it this will help a lot. http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/

Then I glued the mouth plate in using epoxy but again you could use a glue gun instead. Make sure your mouthplate moves freely and nothing is stopping it from being able to perform well. Voila you know have a working puppet head. Be sure to let everything dry thoroughly before you start playing with it.

Next we are going to make a neck tube. This is the simplest part of the build. All you need to do is cut a piece of fabric and make a tube that your arm can fit in to. I won't go into detail about making this cause I think we can all make a tube. Here is the stuff you need to know for installing the tube. Take the bottom of the tube and turn it over about an inch and stitch it over to make a cuff. This cuff will be glued to the bottom of the puppet.

ONLY GLUE AT THE BOTTOM! IF you glue elsewhere you will hinder your puppeteers movement abilities. Now run this tube through the other end of the body and glue one edge to the top of your mouth plate. This will be for your fingers to come out of so it can puppeteer the top jaw. Once the glue is dry cut a slit a inch or two down so that your thumb can come out and work the lower jaw. Your head and body pieces are now connected.

You are in the homestretch now. Glue your arms in place make them however long you want. Then I took some of the extra black foam I had around and some armature wire and made the hands. Then that is about it add any details you want to make your puppet creatively yours. I used some pipecleaners around the eyes and it made him a little happier, also used some wire twisted together to give him a hair curl in the front of his head, and some black craft foam cut up in strips to add some more robotyness(sp?)

In any case I hope this helps give you a basic understanding of how I made this puppet. Remember this is only a guide line and I'm sure you can make something just as good or better with your own creativity. If you have any questions or if you would like to see some tutorials of this kind of stuff let me know. Here is another example of a robot puppet I made out of some old chip bowls and a plastic cereal bowl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnN5-uLib9s

Cheers,
Little's Creatures

[lindsay_pai]

so cute! :D

[Gabby]

oh my gosh he/she's sooo cute!