puppet photo dump: Bertie 2.0

i've been trying to put photos of my puppet's progress on my tumblr account more often, and i just realized that i haven't put any of Bertie 2.0's photos on my preferred site, blogger. shame on me! he's going really well, though very slowly (of course).
so here's the work i've been doing for the past 2 weeks:

 (his head is mostly balsa wood, but the face is sculpted magic-sculpt. shape of the head, very important. which i learned the first time around because his profile was particularly unattractive lol)

(his head before it was fully refined/sanded)

~foam

 (see? nice profile ^^)

embedding a small hex nut into his hand so i can secure a little camera to it while shooting

 and finally, this is where i am right now.

today i finished the painting! looks a lot nicer than Bertie 1.0, doesn't it, haha. anxious to get started on the felting, because i'm probably about 3 days behind schedule right now, on top of being on a pretty rushed schedule. 

he won't look permanently surprised in the film. i'll be using clay+sculpey+wax mix to make animatable eyelids, like last time, haha. avoiding that part for now since it'll just get dirty, anyway. 

his left eye doesn't move very well...i've learned my lesson, lol (embedded the eyeballs in a very hard, air-drying material. not such a good idea). if i make another puppet after i graduate that needs moving eyes....must definitely have soft eye sockets. i avoided trying silicon sockets because i had never made a mold or casted anything before, and i thought that would be an extra week of testing...an extra week i didn't have. but since the function is really important, it would probably have been worth putting in the time, lol.

hindsight...so clear. hope everyone is staying warm! gonna be freezing in new england the next few days. like a high of 20 degrees F freezing, lol.