An art and animation workshop

Portland’s scarlet star studios are home to Gretchin Lair & Sven Bonnichsen and are visited by a range of other creative types and artists. Sven is a machinist and animator and makes his own armatures, puppets and sets.

armature built for 'little girl' in ZUNE Moodbot

As a lot of the work involved in making armatures is drilling and tapping, he’s also been making his own tools such as a tap holder.

Sven’s got some excellent stop motion advice if you are making your own stop motion film and here’s some links to some of his articles on machining.

How to drill an 1/8” ball
Armatures: limits of miniaturization

Here’s also a series of articles on building an armature for animation which looks at techniques for working with small components, soldering, marking out and drilling.

PART 1: THE DESIGN
PART 2: SUPPLIES YOU’LL NEED
PART 3: PUTTING BALLS ON RODS – THE HOLLOW BEAD METHOD
PART 4: MAKING SANDWICH PLATES – THE “SUSHI ROLL” METHOD
PART 5: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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