Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by Snowypaws25 on Jan 20, 2015
Hi everyone! Snowy here! I'm looking for some advice. I've made a large scale posable creaure for an intership and I need to finish it up so I can cover it with fabric. Problem is, I've never done this before.

At my disposal I have two rolls of foam that is the soft green stuff and one thick wide pad about 4 inches or so thick. At the moment I guess he's more of a poseable doll than a puppet though. He has a large pvc skeleton with many joints to allow movement and poseability.

My question is, how do I go about adding the foam in such a way that he can still be moved and posed? Do I just glue the foam over the joints? Or should I use the large foambto pad out the body and the thin foam to cover the joints? I'm clueless and any help would be greatly appreciated!
Re: Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by Shawn on Jan 21, 2015
Kind of hard to give direction on this without knowing exactly what the skeleton pvc system looks like but I would say that your second method might work best for you. Cut and shape your large pad foam to fill out. Make sure as you do this that the joints are not constricted and can still move. I personally don't think a skin over that of the sheet foam is the best option but instead a fabric skin would work better made of a stretchable fabric.  Foam does not stretch it can only compress so anyplace like on the back of an elbow would become static and not as moveable if you use the foam sheet. It might be you would be ok but like I said without really knowing the full details I can't really say.
Re: Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by Snowypaws25 on Jan 21, 2015
Sorry for the lack of information! I was super duper tired when I wrote that and I forgot to include my images, stupid me ><. The ones below are of the joints used to hold it together and of the whole build as it is so far.

Thanks for the advise and again, I'm sorry that I left out the pics.

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Re: Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by Shawn on Jan 21, 2015
Nice framework!  My initial advice still holds. Use your block foam and shape it applying in sections. Make sure you retain the mobility you want in your joints. You can always carve a bit more foam away from a joint if you need after you apply.  The block foam well compress for you so you might be able to get it pretty close to the joint itself. You can try filling in some areas with the sheet foam but I still think a skin of an all-way stretch fabric is going to work best for you.  Even then you need to take care in figuring out your patterning for it. For example the skin on the top of neck needs to be done so when the top the head is tilted up you don't get too much wrinkling of the fabric.  This means that the fabric on the neck may need to be applied with it stretched just a bit.  Hope that makes sense.  Take it in steps and applying in sections and try and attach what you are doing temporarily so you can test that it is working. Pins pushed into the foam base holding the fabric in place can work for this. I do it even when working with foam I kind of pin things together before I glue to make sure it is doing what I want.

Look forward to see this project progress!
Re: Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by Shawn on Jan 21, 2015
P.S.  If you have a facebook account and haven't already, you should join the Puppet Maker's Workshop group and post your project there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/50583854212/  I am sure you would get some good feed back on this.  But don't forget to keep us updated also.
Re: Need some help fleshing out a pvc skeleton for a large-scale project Posted by kirstycrrr on Jan 29, 2015
this looks so cool!
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