Found myself in another surreal situation; I needed a plastic head to make a push mold with - went to Toys R' Us and bought a stuffed wrestling doll with a plastic head. So, there I was sawing the head off this thing, and being a talking doll, it kept saying wrestling catchphrases while I was chopping away at it. Like 'I'm Kevin Nash, whatch out for my aerial assult'.

Weird.

I'm finally getting in there with this thing and getting my hands dirty. Not much luck so far, i'm getting a feel for what has to be done to make something respectable.

Not liking clay very much. I just don't have a great grasp of the anatomy of the human head. Spent about an hour fighting with a lump of clya, pushing and pulling the stuff back and forth. I could sense the whole time that I really didn't have much of a sense of what the goal was, or how to get there.

The next plan is to make a big push mold from a plastic head I bought. It's not the ideal face for my character, but I figure it'll get me a properly proportioned face right off the bat, which I can then edit to look like my character.

My plans for the head mechanism, casting etc. are a little vague, but i've got ideas. It's essentially going to be a rubber mask extending to the hairline that i'll put over top of a resin cast head containing the moving bits. Hopefully it works.

Well, I think i've got enough reference material and supplies to finally get this damn head done. Hopfully i'll be over the hump this weekend. Gotta quit wasting some much time.

Sometimes I wish I had a partner in this project to share the duties. Which would be good, because the project is so damn big. And the things I enjoy about the process aren't typical - I like building sets, directing, storyboards, etc. Everything except making puppets and animating, really. Which is funny, because those two things seem to be the focus of most stop motion people out there. Collaboration has its pitfalls, but it sure sounds good right now.

Anybody out there? Anybody? 

I'm trying to sculpt a head for my big-ass armature. Johannes is the character. He's first on the list, as he ain't seen very much - sort of a trial run to work out the bugs in he process.

I really fucking hate working with clay. I suck at it. Never been into mold-making and all that stuff either. But I gotta do it.

Hopefully suckage will be kept to a minimum.