Rush Revisited, and Eyeballs

I was a MASSIVE Rush fan in high school, and many of their songs instantly take me back to that Neil Peart-idolizing, Ayn Rand-discussing fog of youth. This song is particularly special, not only because I grew up in YYZ, but because that infamous Morse Code Airport Intro always seemed like such a cool idea. No?

Anyway, here it is played on a Yamaha organ by an 11-year old girl. This has nothing to do with stop motion, but there's a little girl character in my film, and... OK it has nothing to do with anything. I just like it: and, some eyeballs...

Here're the eyeballs I'll be using for all 4 puppets. These are little glass beads that are about 7mm in diameter. They're a little uneven in consistency -- some areas are more transluscent than others. I picked out beads that were more solid white to use for the eyes, but some subtle mottling makes them a little more interesting. I filled the holes in with Milliput, which is an epoxy putty from the UK, and a little hard to find here. (I eventually happened upon some at an awesome little hobby store here in Toronto, called Wheels and Wings.) I could have used plumber's epoxy for this, but Milliput works better for the finer-detailed things because it takes longer to dry and is easier to sculpt. I fill the hole almost completely, leaving a tiny indent where the pupil is, so that I'll be able to move the eyeballs around in their sockets later. Then I paint the beads with acrylics, looking through a magnifying glass so I can see what I'm doing -- these eyes are tiny! The final touches (not yet done in this photo) are to tidy up the edge of the irises with a fine-pointed wooden sculpting tool, and then to put a clear coat of polyurethane over the top hemispheres, to seal the paint and add some overall gloss.