More Props

Melons - polystyrene balls, covered in plasticine and painted 

The paint used for the melons 

The finished melons of different sizes

I need to make at least one more crate full of melons.

The newspapers for scene 5 shots 1,2,3

Prop making

                                                           The Strong Man's weights

A piece of metal rod and two polystyrene balls

Coated in plasticine 

Some other types of weights. Again made from different sized polystyrene balls, some thin aluminium and then covered in plasticine. 

I then painted all the weights using acrylic. 

These are the colour paints that I used.

The finished weights

                                                                    The Food Crates 

Then I began making the crate of food that will go in the animals quarters.
I simply used balsa wood and glue. 

I painted the crates that using water colours

I have only made three crates so far because I ran out of Balsa wood.  I had planned to make roughly twelve, so I need to buy some more.

I chose to use all the other sized polystyrene balls to make the fruit that will go into the crates.  I coved them in Plasticine and painted them. 

I painted the smallest polystyrene balls red and orange, so that they can be apples and oranges.  

I think I need about 24 more oranges and 24 more apples. I also have another crate the same as the one in this photo to fill. Which I might make bananas for. 

Trying to work out scale

I made a rough paper scale model of my set and places my unfinished puppets in the set to see how they look for scale.
I think the base needs to be about 10cm bigger all the way round. 

There will be material where the string is 

The arena scene 

Where the Bearded lady will stand on her platform. 

Here I was trying to get a rough idea what some of the shot will look like.
Here would be scene 2 shot 1 over the should shot of the Strong man.. 

2:2 close up of Jacob 

Jacob runs over to the Strong man 

2:4 Jacob gestures for the Strong man to step a side..

2:9 Jacob has just been told off by the Bearded lady

Characters 'Freeze' and the set begins to rotate.. 3:1

New scene, the animals quarters, 3:4 

Then I had the idea to see what my set would look like through a fish eye lens. 

Still test my fish eye lens 

I like the fish eye effect a lot. I think I'll look into different types of camera lens, and the effects they have.

Production Begins - Armatures

I unscrewed the little electrical terminal blocks from the plastic.

Next I twisted some aluminium and copper wire together, about 3 strips of Aluminium wire and just 1 strip of copper for strength. As you can see I used a drill to twist the wire.

I cut the twisted wire down to the right lengths. 

Using both epoxy and super glue, I glue the terminal blocks to some washers. 

I then glued those washers onto bigger washers.
These pieces will be the chest piece for Jacob, the Bearded lady and the strong man. 

I used milliput to mould around the chest pieces (and the hip pieces, which are on the right) to make them stronger. 

The Strong Man's armature coming along 

Jacobs armature so far

The Bearded lady's half an armature.

More of the Strong Man 

My three human armature so far…