PIGS - Animatronic Puppets.
Specifications:
Two- 36" tall puppets.
Materials:
Foam latex,
fiberglass, aluminum wire, hair, animatronics.
Movements:
General body, head, mouth, tongue, nose, eyes, eyelids, brows, ears, tail.
Available.
The Cici’s Pizza Pigs project presented us with a tough challenge. It required us to create four wild, partying pigs racing around in a van. This is exactly the kind of thing we love to do, but the catch was, we only had three weeks to create the animatronic puppets for it.
In order to make this tight schedule work, we had to employ some creative technical strategies. We used Zbrush to quickly design 3D pig characters and get them approved. Using very precise techniques, we accurately translated the Zbrush design into a full size clay sculpture. Once the clay sculpt was approved by the clients, we molded the sculpture and created a core. Using the mold, we cast two full pig skins. We were able to pad the skin out and alter one of the pigs to make it appear heavier and change it into a significantly different looking pig. This brought us halfway to our goal of four pigs, and fortunately, with the added assistance of compositing, we were then able to shoot the two pig puppets in two separate passes to complete the requirement of all four of these partying pigs.
Within the tight deadline, we were still able to build in full facial animatronics- eyes, eye blinks, brows, ears, nose wiggle, mouth, tail, and we even included a wild tongue in/out and wiggle mech. The neck, arms, and general body movement were hand and rod puppeteered, and the compositing also allowed for removing the puppeteers and puppeteer rods in post production.
Pig Fabrication Process Shots
PIGS - Credits
CICI's Pizza - commercial.
Service from behind the scenes since 1980.
