PLASTICINE

Plasticine (or plasticine) is an oil-based clay used in the industry of design to make high precision models.
(it’s different from the regular plasticine you can find in any art/kid shop)

It has the property to react to the temperature: heat it and it will melt until it becomes liquid and you can pour it in a mould. Cold it, let’s say, in a freezer and it will become quite hard (well, it’s still plasticine)
It comes in different states of softness. Be careful when making a choice about it:
If you choose it too soft, a mere touch of your fingers will leave prints, and could affect the shape you’re modelling.
And if it’s too hard, it will be difficult to reach the stage where it’s melted enough to be modelled.

Tip : to soften the plasticine and have a nice soft look to it, you can use a bit of odourless turpentine : apply with parsimony (I use the tip of a cotton bud), i twill melt the surface and even it.

You can then wipe it very smoothly with baby wipes. (baby wipes are also great to get rid of dust)

An other great product to use is baby powder: apply it with a soft brush and rub the plasticine with your finger: it will become smooth and shiny

If you want to sculpt a head or whatever around a core, be careful to make it solid : wood is a good idea. Don’t use paper or any other material that will endlessly « collapse » on itself. And avoid using aluminium foil for the core it reacts weirdly with plasticine.

If you can, put you’re platicine lump on a top of a stick, so you can work on it without having to hold it in your hands

Where can you find plasticine?

Mine was PASCAL ROSIER's , and I found it in ADAM (parisian art shop)

SUPER SCULPEY

Is a slightly translucid pink polymer clay. (it doesn't exist in other colors... I once saw somewhere on internet that you can tint it, but I never tried)
It’s very easy to work, allows great precision and refinement in details.
You can bake it in the oven.

I don't have much more to say: I just love SuperSculpey, that’s all :)

Go and check the Sculpey Website

HEAT SHRINKABLE TUBING

Is a tube made of soft plastic that has the property to shrink when heated (with a lighter, or a heat gun)
It comes in different sizes and colours, and is very useful to reinforce twisted aluminium wires.
You can find it in electric stores.
Here is the link to the corresponding page on Maplins, in the UK.

K&S

Is a system of square metal tubes

that comes in different sizes, each size fitting exactly in the one above (or below) it.

The interest in using it in an armature is that you can make it separable: the head from the spine, the hands from the arms… so if a part break you can replace it.

It can also allows you to rescult a head while shooting: you don’t have to remove the entire puppet from the set, just its head.
If you’re advanced in welding, and drilling, you can attach a nut on a piece of K&S, and drill a hole to place a screw: this way you can add pressure to the other K&S tube inside the first, to ensure it won’t move. But most of the time the mere fitting of two tubes is enough.
Where to find it: In a model shop.
They have a website: http://www.ksmetals.com

TWISTED ALUMINIUM WIRE

Aluminium wires exist in different diameters: 0,5 mm, 0,7 mm, 1mm…
When using it for the armatures, consider twisting some strings of wire together to improve their individual resistance to breakage.

You can twist your wires by hand, but by using a drill, the twisting will be more even.

Tutorial to twist wires with a drill:

step1: cut some pieces of wire of the same length;

step2: attach them together with a small piece of heat shrink wire.

step3: put this extremity in a drill,

and roll the other end of the wires around a pencil, so you can pull it tight. Then press the button on the drill.

step4: et voila! you now have a very even piece of twisted wire (more or less: sometimes you can't use the total lenght of the wires…)

I buy my aluminium wire in a shop in Paris called WEBER METAUX, where they sell it by the kilo (a kilo is an enormous roll).