Here’s what I’ve been working on the past couple of days, and where things are going.  I’m back into crazy detail mode!

I’ve made a set of hands for each character.  After wiring them up and filling the palms with Milliput, I dip them in some slightly-watered-down liquid latex.  Like tiny candles, I hang them up to dry vertically, so the fingers form the right shapes.

I found this awesome electrical wire (right) at Active Surplus.  10 cents a foot!  So I bought 6 feet.  This 60 cent length of wire will make about twelve thousand tiny hands.  Woohoo!

I also plan all my hands to the finest detail (left)… measuring out each tiny length of wire insulation… not so much because I’m particularly obsessive when it comes to these types of details, but so that I can remember how I did them when I make duplicates.  Huzzah!

And, last but not least, I’m planning the colour palette for the dining room set.  Most of the set has already been constructed, but it’s all sitting nakedly in its pale balsa wood form right now.  Soon I will paint everything in these bedazzling colours…  Kapow!

Note how I’ve cleverly changed the numbers in the “Total Parts Needed” column to make myself feel like I’m more ahead.  I can build the backups once I know everything’s working perfectly — in other words, once I start animating.

In my estimation, the first 4 puppets will be finished sometime next week — painted, assembled, finito.  Then I can hand them all over to my friend Alli, so she can finalize the costumes.

Then: dining room, wiring up the practical lights, final set touch-ups, animatic tweaks, test animation, meetings with Marcus about the lighting, setting up rigs, renting fantastical lights, and we’re ready to shoot.  Whoopee!