When the parts from Mike Brose (Puppets and props) arrived, the sirfaces were very smooth. The paint won’t stick to a smooth surface, so the first task was to sand all the parts very thoroughly.

This job takes a while to complete, but all the guides I have read emphasizes the importance of sanding properly.  At the moment the paint starts to fall off you will regret.

Sanding Albert

I used a couple of hours or more sanding the parts, making sure I sanded all the small pieces and pits on the figure.

After all the sanding was done, it was important do get rid of all the dust after the sanding.  The next step was therefore to wash all the parts in water and detergent and dry it thoroughly.

Mixing the paint

Mixing a lot of skin toned paint

The first thing I had to decide was whether to paint the figure before or after installing the mechanics.  The reason you should do this before installing the mechanics is that you don’t want any paint on the eyes and other parts.  The reason you should do it after installing the mechanics is that you easily will damage the paint during your work with sharp tools etc.

Before you make any decision at this point, you should also consider whether you want to seal off the paint with some acrylic sealer or not.  If you do the paint will last longer, but if you don’t it will be easier to fix any damage at a later point.

Testing different versions of the skin toned paint

So what did I do? I chose to paint first and not to use a acrylic sealer.  This meant that I would likely get a few scratches, but it would be relatively easy to repair.

Mixing paint is not as easy as it looks. Read carefully what the guides describe, and buy exactly the kind of paint they suggest.  At the beginning I didn’t find all the types they described, and bought something I thought would match.

I did some mixing and tested it on the back side of the head, which later would be covered by hair anyway.  This way the extra layers of paint would not make him look bad when he was finished. I mixed and mixed.  Be aware that the paint will darken more than you think as it dries.  You therefore have to mixed some a bit lighter what you want the end result, and then paint a bit.  After it has dried you can adjust the mix of paint and try again.

Painting Albert with a sponge brush

First off, he looked like he had hepatitis.  Not at all what I had in mind.  I made some adjustments and tried again. For each try, the amount of paint increased, and as it increased, the amount of paint needed to adjust increased.  Suddenly I had a lot of paint.  Half way I should have thrown away half of it, but I didn’t.  Instead I made some more visits to different shops and managed to get the colors I had missed from the guides I had read.

When I was satisfied I had enough paint for 20 or so dummies.  I can repair Albert for the rest of my life as long as I store the paint properly.

The skin tone I ended up with is lighter than many figures I have seen.  I have allways thought the dummies look a bit dark.  In retrospect Albert is maybe a bit too light, but I am still pretty satisfied with the color.

I have for a long time wanted to get me a ventriloquist dummy. I have been a magician for years, not a good one at all, but it is still fun to perform for family and friends from time to time.

I guess it is not than uncommon to combine magic and ventriloquism, and finally I decided to go for it and give it a try. So here it is: My Albert Project.

Ventriloquist dummies is not cheap at all. That is, those that are is not really good, and if I should do this at all I wanted a good one. My first attempt to get hold on a ventriloquist dummy on a budget was to buy a cheap plastic version of Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen’s famous dummy.

I bought one on eBay with plans to change it to get moving eyes and a new body so I could move the head. All it had in advance was a string in the neck that could open his mouth. As soon as I received it I saw that this was not going to be successful in any way. The head was just too small, much smaller than I thought it was.

Just opened the mail from Mike Brose

I was just about to give up the whole idea when I made a gigantic U-turn and start of the project that I’m in the middle of at the moment: I made some orders at Puppets and Props the (in the ventriloquist circles) famous shop of Mike Brose. There I bought a “Fred” casted head, hands and two beautifully crafted eyes. I also considered the “Little E” head, but I liked Fred better.

Norwegian taxes and shipping included, it got a little expensive, but as soon as I saw the parts I was delighted. Mike Brose has made a fantastic job with the sculpting. If this is not going to be a smashing dummy, it will be my own fault for sure. It was a great experience to buy from Brose, the communication included. If you ever consider buying parts, this is is the place you should consider first.

It is no reason to fool anyone about this job: It look so simple getting the readily casted head, but don’t be fooled. It is really a lot of work left for me. A lot of work with sand paper, washing and cleaning, painting and above all; a lot of work creating and installing the mechanics. I will explain more about this in later posts.

OK; I had the dummy parts, but what now? To those who haven’t given it a thought, it might seem like a simple task to make the dummy when you have the dummy parts ready (as shown in the picture). Well, it is not that simple, really.

Making the head, hands and eyes is for sure a gigantic task, at least to me that has no sculpturing skills and haven’t done anything like it before.  Getting a ready casted head, hands and eyes was to me the difference of making a dummy, or not making a dummy. Mike Brose at Puppets and Props has made the beautiful parts you can see at the picture.

Just opened the mail from Mike Brose

It comes with mechanics and an installation guide to assemble the jaw to the head, but apart from this, you are on your own. So what is it to make? You sit there with the eyes and want it to work somehow in the head. And should the dummy have blinkers or winkers? And what about raising eye brows? There are many things you can do, and a thousand ways to make it. And how should the hand controls be like? And what about painting, and hair, not to mention making a body?

Before I could start with anything it was best to gather some information about making dummies. I have used two different sources. The most important one to me is a guide made by Al Stevens. This is available at Puppets and Props. It is free, but if it hadn’t been, I would have paid to read it. I have read it many times, and constantly checked it to solve small problems and re-read details. It covers all essential parts of figure building and is good enough to be the only source of information.

As an additional source I bought the e-book Figure Making Can Be Fun?!? written by Mike Brose. It is a massive instructional book of 206 pages, and covers a broader area than Al Stevens guide. A large part of it is about modelling and casting of the head and hands, which was not of interrest for me in this project. It has also a more details on some subjects than Al Stevens’ guide.

Jeg og Lars bygde oss en snøplog i Lego.

Jeg og Lars bygde Lego i helgen. Jeg begynte å bygge et fly, men Lars ble raskt med på prosjektet. Han syntes jeg underdimensjonerte fremdriften veldig, så det ble lagt til en god del propeller. Det måtte skikkelige hjul til også. Det kan vel være at den til slutt ikke ble helt flyvedyktig, men vi koste oss veldig.

Nå begynner terminologien og rutinen å komme også. I går kom han med følgende uttalelse: “Pappa? jeg trenger en treer. Nei, vent, jeg har et triks: Jeg kan bruke en toer og en ener!”

Her er en terrengbil jeg bygget mens Lars utvidet trikken sin.

På lørdag fikk jeg og Lars endelig kommet oss på posthuset og hentet pakken med Lego fra Helge’s sets & bricks.

Her var det virkelig mye godsaker som ventet på oss. Jeg og Lars måtte selvfølgelig bygge litt. Jeg bygde en veteranbil og Lars lagde (med litt hjelp) en bil med et par hengere. Disse pyntet han med “lys”-brikker og blomster Vi koste oss skikkelig begge to.

Med i pakka kom det deler til ti minifigurer, fem damer og fem menn. Med noen få vi hadde fra før ble det en bra samling.

Her er noen bilder. Det trente øyet vil vel umiddelbart se min design flaw som gjør at bildørene ikke kan åpnes

Vanskelig å bygge når man ikke har så mange gode deler. Blir bra å få flere klosser på lørdag.

Jeg har lenge tenkt å skrive om mitt nye fotostativ. Denne posten ble påbegynt å april, men ikke fullført før i dag. Det går ikke så fort med meg i bloggeverden for tiden

Stativet jeg kjøpte meg var en Manfrotto 0550XPROB med et 498 RC2 hode. 055XPROB er “storebroren” til 190XPROB, men er kraftigere.

Jeg valgte stativet av følgende årsaker:

• Det er stødig
• Det kan felle bena helt ut
• Og ikke minst: Det har en midtstang som kan vendes 90 grader.

Dette gjør det perfekt til makrofotografering. Jeg har nå hatt det i et halvt år, og er kjempefornøyd. Jeg kommer til alle motivene, enten det er på bakken, står i en skråning eller på annen måte står vanskelig til.

Stativet er mye stødigere enn det gamle (et billigere Manfrottostativ fra ca. 2000). På vanlige bilder har det ikke så mye å si, men på makro er det veldig merkbar forskjell med mindre jeg hadde det gamle stativet helt nede. Når jeg fotograferte litt opp, som på grener i trær osv, så var det gamle ustabilt. Beina har bare tre deler, i motsetning til det gamle som hadde fire. Det merkes!

Jeg liker også låsemekanismen på leddene på beina. Det gamle hadde en skrumekanisme, mens dette har vippbare låser. Det er lettere å behandle med votter på, og det funker like bra om beina er våte. Det gamle ble vanskeligere når det hadde vært i regn.

Stødigheten kommer imidlertid på bekostning av vekt. Stativet er tungt. Med hodet veier det 3 kg. Jeg kunne kjøpt i karbon, men jeg tenkte meg litt om og kom frem til at det ikke var verdt forskjellen. Dessuten er det bare en fordel at det er tungt når det først skal brukes. Det er jo under bæring at det er dumt med et tungt stativ. Jeg bærer det alltid festet til fotosekken, og jeg går aldri veldig langt. Jeg har ikke angret på at jeg gikk for metall og ikke karbon.

Midtstanga er helt genial. Det er ganske kjapt å vende den 90 grader. Med dette kommer jeg mye lavere enn med det gamle, og får nesten alltid plassert det akkurat slik jeg vil. For makromotiver på bakken når jeg vil ta bildet rett ovenifra så lar jeg midtstanga stikke ut litt fra stativet og så tar jeg bildet rett ned, uten at kameraet slår borti beina på stativet.

Jeg har ikke tidligere hatt kulehode, men også det valget er jeg veldig forbnøyd med. Det er raskere å stille inn slik jeg vil, og jeg har bedre fleksibilitet. Det er også mye mer stødig enn det gamle hodet som hadde et ledd. Ulempen er at jeg lettere kan dumme meg ut og “glippe” kameraet så det slår inn i stativet. Jeg har gjort det et par ganger, heldigvis uten tunge linser på.

Det finnes sikkert bedre stativer, men ikke til den samme prisen. Det lønner seg å kikke litt rundt etter pris. Jeg kjøpte mitt på Japan Photo i kit sammen med hodet siden det den gangen ga den beste prisen. Kort og godt ville jeg valgt akkurat det samme stativet og hodet igjen om jeg skulle valgt på nytt.

 

“The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is often difficult to verify their authenticity.”

– Abraham Lincoln