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LaughingTree — Animatronic alien...
Published: 2005-04-06 08:33:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 1720; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 360
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Description
So I created this piece back in Pittsburgh in 2001-2002. It's an animatronic head that I designed, sculpted, cast, mechanized, and painted. All in all it probably has about 400 hours of work in it. It has 11 servo motors inside that control its facial movements. They are remote controlled, or can be hooked up to a mediamation board and preprogrammed. In this video, however, they are just being controlled by two people who have remote controls.The top eye blinks, and moves left to right. The two main eyes blink and move left and right. The eyebrows move up and down independently of each other. The jaw opens and closes. The bottom lip moves up and down and in and out, and the top lip moves up and down and in and out.
I apologize for the poor quality of the video, but it's the only one I have of this piece and I don't have two remotes anymore so I can't take a new video of all the servo's working together. but you get the idea...
Materials include: Fiberglass underskull, 11 servo's (Micro servos and regular ones), foam latex skin, PAX paint, cable, aluminum, Quick cure resin, hours of love and devotion...
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Comments: 41
So have you met my cousin Carl Bridge in Portland yet ? He spent 7 years in animatronics in Hollywood and moved to Portland a year ago. He's heavily into Aikido as well...A VERY talented artist in his own right. His father apprenticed to my father when I was a child. I think you both would have allot of corresponding skill sets to offer each other.
I have no idea why he isn't on this site.
Perhaps I can remedy that...
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I really haven't done any animatronic/makeup work in quite some time. Can't say as though I've heard of your cousin. Don't know very many people down in Portland. Definitely let me know if he decides to pop his head in this little site
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I wrote him last night,
It usually take him a few days to respond.
He's not doing animatronics in Portland either but is still heavily involved in mask making.
I can't remember the name of the company he works for up there but they ARE taking advantage of his skill as a sculptor.
You would remember him if you met him. 6'3 tribal tattoos on his arms and shoulders. He's 34 I think.
I just think he'd be interested to see your glass work.
Was I wrong in assuming you were in Portland? Is it Seattle then ?
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Yeah. I'm a Seattle guy. Sounds pretty memorable to me haha!
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Ah,
OK,I stand corrected.
seattle it is...
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excellent work
the jaw movement takes it to another level
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The Art Institute of Pittsburgh...
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sounds pretty spiffy. they dont teach that sort of stuff at my skool.or if they do im in the wrong department...
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Yeah, not too many schools in the country teach that...
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this is great, I hope someday you will put it out with some audio with vocals on it so we can hear your alien speak. Is that foam latex expensive/hard to get your hands on? anyways amazing character
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Thanks man. Well the latex itself is pretty easy to get a hold of, [link] however, it requires a bit of equipment to make it work. You need a blender to mix it in, and a pretty accurate scale to measure the different components. And you need a mold to put it in, and then you need to bake it. But actually getting the stuff is fairly easy
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Awesome! I love animatronics, and it's so cool to see them in action! Thanks for uploading this!
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Of course. I only wish I had some better footage.
Thanks!
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Beautiful mechanical creature. It's a great design, especailly with the third eye and your movements are unbelievable smooth and lifelike. Was this your final product for mechcanical creatures 2 or 3? Anyway, tons of kudos and congadulations, it's a wonderful piece.
It's funny, one of the first things I saw in the thumbnail was the makeup room. I'd recognize the backround anywhere, since I've been practically living there for the past forever trying to finish my mechanical critter.
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I know the feeling well! (Of living in the makeup room) I spent MANY a hours working in there. Even had some late nights, or rather early mornings in there helping Mr. HEnderson with work on a movie for him. Many many hours.
Anyways... Back when I was taking that class... There was no 3. It just had 2 quarters! Although, I didn't have all those movements at the end of 2 quarters. I had 5 servos in there by the end. It seems that you and I have something in common as we both seemed to do a little bit more than necessary... I ended up adding 6 more servos to it the next quarter... It was tought fitting them all in their. I wish I had a picture of it before I put the skin on! It was PACKED!
Mr. Henderson has some video of it somewhere in his collection. It's much better quality.
Have you finished you mech. mask or robotics project yet?
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Yeah, it's fun walking into the makeup room and seeing the group of regulars who are there all day everyday (me included it seems). Your animitronics are unbelievable, especially since I really have no head for that aspect of FX work.
I finished my mechanical mask about a year ago. It's a frost giant with giant hippo teeth and a fuckoff ZZ-Top beard. One of these days I need to get some photos of it for DA, and the portfolio.
And I don't think they teach a robotics class per say anymore. Henderson mentioned that's what they used to call creatures and it had some different criteria. Now critters is in 3 parts: 1 is design, sculpting, molding, coring and fiberglass. 2 is the skin, eyes, teeth, and mechanisms, only 2 of which have to be servo controlled (thank god, since I have not the funds). That's what I'm scrambling to finish right now, since it's due Wednesday afternoon. 3 is interesting - we can either take are old critter and put 4 more servo movements in it and have it computer controlled, or create a whole new project that has just 4 servo movements.
It's all good fun, but man is it intensive.
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Thanks. The mechanisms were my favorite part of that school. I'm all about the problem solving. And that was the most problem solving type of stuff there.
Yeah, they were changing the name of the class when I was there. I WISH we had mediamation abilities... I tried to get that crap to work for HOURS in Gregg's office... No dice... Pissed me off... Ended up just using two RC transmitters. Ah welll...
That sounds pretty nifty though. Get some photos up! Videos, even better!
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that's great ! wow man of many talents
love your glass pieces
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.....uh...............
wow.....
you MADE that frikkin thing? that's unreal!
is that your wee lil hand?
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Hahaha. That's my lil' sister's! She's a cutie! And that hand is certainly quite a tiny one! I could probably fit each one of those hands in one of my fingers!
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Hehe. Wow! Thanks!
That's quite a statement...
Which reminds me of a thought I've had once in my life which I can now never EVER forget for the rest of my life... I'll post it in a journal entry one of these days... I have this thought on god... You shall see...
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Fuckin' Awesome man! Can't wait to see what you do next. What was this a personal project or a professional one? Either way very cool.
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This was a personal one. It was actually for a "Mechanical Masks" class. Technically I was supposed to create something that someone could wear on their face. Although I sort of didn't do that and instead just created a "Robot" of sorts. But yeah it was for a class.
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wow, supersweet. You made this? From scratch? Amazing. Lately I've actually been quite interested in moving sculptures, I hope to see more of your obvious excellence in this matter.
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Yup. That guy is entirely from scratch. First sculpted him in clay, then molded that. Then made a mold for the underskull. Then created a fiberglass underskull... Then cast a foam latex skin in the first mold. Then mechanized the face. then put the skin on the underskull. In slightly more complicated ways than that sounds... hehe...
Yeah, I've had a thing for kinetic sculptures for a long time... If done properly they can be so impressive. I've wanted to make a breathing ribcage ever since my first spine sculpture... In fact that first one was supposed to breath, but I never got the mechanisms figured out in time to create that... Alas....
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sounds like a shitload of work even when it's described briefly... you must have impressive amounts of patience and self-control. so where did you learn? in school? or by yourself?
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Yeah I actually would consider myself one of the most patient people I have ever met. As well as with an incredible amount of self-control. I value having a really strong mind. That's really important to me.
As far as where I learned, the animatronics were taught to me in school (The Art Institute of PIttsburgh) mostly by my teacher (Mr. Doug Henderson) who is a brilliant man when it comes to such things. Although I did put in a lot more extra time and research than most people. Although I'd probably say that if it weren't for the class, I wouldn't have been able to do this without some reason...
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There is not a doubt in my mind. And I agree with you, mental strength is very important. And healthy.
cool! nice to see all that hard work pay off then 
--
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I think his company name is Henderson Design and PRoduction. Based in PIttsburgh, PA... The man knows his stuff!
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Man o man.. what will we see next.. you are so multitalented its insane. Where do you get access to all of this awesomeness! me and my girlfiend reallyt wanna get into prostetics and all that..where do you buy supplys?
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Well I went to school at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh for two years to get a degree in special effects, which included makeup, animatronics, set design, props... etc. When it comes to special effects there are really two ways to get into that... The first and best way is to find someone who knows what they're doing and just learn from them as best as you can. One of my teachers in pittsburgh was just incredible! He's a brilliant man and I learned as much as I possibly could from him.
The other way is to get books or movies on the subject... MovieFX magazine (Which is actually a DVD) is a great resource. There are some good books out there too... There's the Dick Smith course, although that's crazy expensive (But WELL worth every single penny if you're serious about it.) As far as supplies, I got them all from my school and hobby stores pretty much. It depends what you're trying to do. If you give me some more information I could certainly recommend some stuff. As far as prosthetic makeups, a lot of that stuff came from Monster Makers (www.monstermakers.com)
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Oh, and thank you kindly for the kind words!
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Thats amazing, simply amazing. Not only are an incredible artist my friend, the destroyer of worlds if you will.
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THATS INCREDIBLE
i must have one. no really though, that's awesome lifelike, well done.
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Thanks! If I hadn't invested my entire life for 6 months, I might consider selling it... haha... It was quite fun to create. I love solving problems... And that lil' guy had his fair share and then some!
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