Just A Little Something

Jon Hartman
Sep 15, 2016
2 min read

When I wrote my last post, I had spent some time working on a from-scratch ball-and-socket armature. Surprisingly (for me), I had actually been snapping a few pictures as I iterated on the design, but I hit some cloud-related issues and lost many of my progress shots. By the time I realized it, I had already covered the armature with the puppet for my forthcoming project, so I'm not even able to share some juicy close ups of the final armature. I figured I'd make a new one soon enough, so I could just share that one, but as I've moved on to some set-related things, it'll be a little longer.

I came across this low-light picture that I had sent to someone, however, so it was linked to the messaging account that I used. Here it is:

My goal here was to build a ball-and-socket armature while seated at a desk in my parents house without any of the tools one might normally use for such a task. So, all of the plates are hand-shaped, all of the holes are hand-drilled, and all of the taps are hand-tapped.

I don't know if you've ever tried to do such a thing, but it is very unpleasant. However, the end result is good enough for government work (perhaps even slightly better). If you have any questions about what I did, feel free to send me an email!

Luckily for me, I've since acquired a drill press and a whole new work space in a whole new home. I'm very excited to experiment faster and more comfortably.

In the spirit of sharing, here's a blurry photo of puppet as I sculpted him over the armature. See if you can guess the plot from one blurry in-progress photo.