The Puppets of Puppet Master

[Chris VanVlair]

A few month back, I was reminded of an old love of mine, the Puppet Master franchise from Full Moon. Back when I was a kid, I had tried to make the puppets out of G.I. Joes. Needless to say, as they were made by an 11-12 year old who had never tried to replicate props bfore, they were not very good. Since I'm now an adult with actual tools, some builing experience and knowledge of makers all over the world, I decided to give it a more serious attempt.

The first puppet I started with was Leech Woman

I started with this 17" Barbie I bought on eBay. I cut her hair short and covered her body with Rustoleum white primer, which I touched up with two different shades of white as well as a few touches of light purple acrylic paint, from Apple Barrel.



After that I worked on painting her face. Everything, barring the red paint for her lips was done with Apple Barrel acylic paint. The lipstick was done with Testors red.

Next she needed hair. I had further cut down the blonde hair, now I needed a wig that would match. After struggling to figure out her wig size, I got a wig ordered. after a trim, it was as close to pefect as I could hope.




The next step for her will be getting her dresses made, starting with her part 3 dress, seen in the first picture.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time to break down the current progress on the next puppet; Pinhead.

I started by acquiring a Pinhead casting. The casting was in bad shape and needed all it's flaws fixed.


After doing as much repair work as I could, I primed and painted it.

After getting the head painted I made a quick mold, in case something happens to the current one and as practice for something later in the project.
After the head was finished, I went and found a sweater and pants at thrift stores to make his clothes from.

Finally I needed a body. After getting some advice, I ordered an 20" tall infant mannequin off eBay. Once it arrived, I sawed off it's neck and added a hole into Pinhead's.




And here's the current state of him, next to Leech Woman.

 

[jamestyson050]

I want a Pinhead head

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time for the next puppet to begin taking shape, a puppet only seen in the beginning of the first film; Kahn.

My journey began with the knowledge the puppet in the film was an actual character in burmese puppet shows, Zawgyi the Alchemist. Looking up burmese puppets on eBay, I found this listing and bought him. While he's way to big to be part of my set, he served as a great piece of reference.

When I posted the antique puppet in a Facebook group, another member showed the below piece. After getting my puppet, I messaged him and asked if he still had it. He did and explained that he had sculpted this as part of a deal with another person who has never fulfilled their end of the deal. We arranged a deal and I received it last Friday.

After the head arrived, I filled in a few casting flaws and made a mold.

I did a test cast in plaster to check if the mold had any warping. It came of fairly decent.

After a failed first try, I managed to get a decent rotocast copy from the mold. After it was fully cured I took it to my garage and primed and painted it.


Here he is, his mustache needs to be thicker and his beard braids need to be added, but for the moment, I'm calling him a success.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Figured I should do one more update before the new year.

First off, here's an update on Kahn


Next, I traded a Kahn head casting to another collector for a casting of the Hitler puppet from Part 3

Nothing crazy came of that, he just needed to be painted.(note picture two shows an in progress paint job)

Here's one I never addressed, Decapitron. Before I got in contact with Vehicros, I got Decapitron's head parts and eyes printed by a guy in a puppet master Facebook page. After the parts arrived, I painted the head and collar and made resin copies of the mouth eyes and dome.


And we come to the final piece acquired this year. Clippo the Clown; used as a background set piece in the first film

He was redesigned as "Pajama Boy" in the Action Lab comics.

That wraps up everything on the Project for 2020, but this will continue in the new year.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

I can't believe it's been four months since I last posted in this forum. I've gotten a lot done for this project so, starting tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a whole bunch of updates.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

So, Im a little late, but here is the first update on the fastest six guns in the west; Six-Shooter




I started by frankensteining three drawing mannequins together.


I 3d printed his head and used the action figure as reference for his hairline, He accidentally got stepped on, luckily his head was salvaged by a combination of super glue and wood filler (see above). After that, he just needed a repaint.


Next I printed his hands. To mount them, I filled them with fast setting resin and stuck pieces of a wooden dowel into them to mount them to the arms.

So, now I had his body basically finished, he just needed clothes. After I had made a post showing off the progress of everyone in a facebook group, another member contacted me offering to sell me a shirt for Six-Shooter and and outfit for Torch. The price was right, so, we made a deal.


Unfortunately, this is where I hit a snafu. The seller actually pointed out that my Six-Shooter was too tall and told me how much to remove from his toros to make his accurate. With the aid of my building's maintenence man, I attempted to chop down two of his torsos. The first one cut through fine, the second one however, exploded for reasons neither of us could figure out. I attempted to glue the pieces back together. Unfortunately, I had to remove the tension spring that held them both on and when I tried to reattach them, it got over stretched. So, I attached the arms with string, sadly, it too is too loose.

Here he is, after reassembly. I just ordered some more mannequins, so, I'll be able to reassambled him soon. Then, I just need to get his outfit made.

As a solution to his guns, I ordered these USB's that I had seen someone else use. So, now I wait for these and the mannequins to arrive and try to find someone to make the rest of his outfit.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time to discuss the build process for fan-favorite puppet; Torch

Like most of my puppets, Torch is built out of a 20 inch wood drawing mannequin. I printed his hand, his flamethrowetr, his medal and his head on my Ender 3

Unfortunately, the files I was using for his head didn't fit together nor did it come with files for his bullet teeth. So, I decided to give up on these files and look for an alternative.


Another fan I knew, actually had the files that were used to make Torch's head for the 30th anniversary replica. We agreed on a price and he sent me the pieces to assemble my own.

I started by cleaning the pieces up with sandings, wood filler and filler primer.

I removed the wings from my failed prototype and glued them to the new helmet.

for the rivets in his face, I used very small nails which i cut down and glued into his helmet.


Because the files didn't come with a mount, I had to improvise. I attached one of the Vehicros mount's I had printed and threaded the connecting bar through a piece of dowel, that I had drilled a hole through. The dowel then fit through the bottom of Torch's Head.
To make his eye lenses, I adheared a red film to some thin plastic from hobby lobby and cut it so size, before glueing them inside the helmet.

Some other pieces I don't have pictures for.
*I acquired his outfit from the same Person as Six-Shooter's shirt. Sadly, the person who originally made it only works through middle-men.
*I sewed the 3D printed medal onto the outfit's pocket.
*The jaw was attached to the helmet using cotter pins.
*The flamethrower and hand are mounted to the body, the same way as Six-Shooter's; filled with resin and a wooden dowel.
*To bulk up his body, I used pieces of open cell foam

How he currently looks. The objects in my hands are the LEDs I'm going to use to light up his eyes. As for his boots, I'm trading someone a headcastof another puppet for a pair of Torch boots.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time for a few updates on Kahn



Realizing I needed to add the actual braids of hair for his beard, I had drilled out holes on hi jaw, under the sculpted beard.

Next, I took some leftover hair from Leech Woman's wig and tied it into little groups.

Finally, I pulled them through the drilled out holes with some pliers and glued them in place.


Then, it was time to give him some more accurate feet. I started with a loose foot from one of the left over lower bodies I had from building Six-Shooter. I cut it down to size and sanded it until I got a shape much closer to the one in the film.


Realizing I didn't want to carve five more feet (I'm making two more Kahn puppets for someone else), I decided to seal it with a Rust-Oleum clear coat and then make a mold with some Mold Putty. I then cast up a pair in some fast curing resin.


Here's a size comparison between the original mannequin foot size and my resized resin cast foot.


Next, I need to get the ball joints from the original wood feet to use in my resin castings. I got them out by using a jewelery screwdriver and driving it into the wooden foot with my hammer, which let me split the feet and extract the ball joint.


I cleaned up the joints and the castings before gluing them together. I then swapped out the old feet on Kahn with the new ones. I then sprayed them with white primer, just as I had done previously to his forearms and lower legs. I then mixed up some red and black paint to get a shade I liked and painted his feet.

That night, even though I was sure he wouldn't be able to do so, I decided to try and get him to stand on his own. To my amazement he actually is able to stand on his own, fairly easily.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time for an update on Six-Shooter, specifically on his outfit.



To make his jeans, i simply cut off part of a leg from an old pair of worn out jeans. I'll use the same pattern for them as most of the other puppets.

Next up came the bandana. After failing to find a suitable doll sized bandana, I lucked out and found a fabric with the perfect pattern at Walmart. It even had the pattern in a diamond that was the perfect size to cut out and wrap around his neck.


Now for tonight's project, prototyping the vest. I found a chair being thrown out by a neighbor and harvested some material.

Took some measurements and made a rough prototype.

I took some tools and a bigger piece of material back to my apartment from my shop. I was able to get a much better shape this time. I slipped it over his shirt and slipped both back on his body.

And with that, here's how he looks as of tonight:

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Time to update the progress of yet another puppet. The brains of the group; Jester.

Like with most of the characters, I started by printing the parts I needed, in this case; the three faces of Jester (not to be confused with the three faces of Foley)



Originally, I had printed his hands myself, unfortunately, they always came out brittle and ugly. Fed up, I had someone local to me print them on his resin printer. Now, I have hands for all four puppet who use those hands.



The next addition was to when I acquired an Always Sisters Brittany doll. These were used as the bodies for Blade, Tunneler, Leech Woman and Jester. They even kept the boots from the doll and used them as Jester’s. By luck, a reasonably cheap on appeared on eBay. I managed to snag her and gave her boots to Jester.



And for the final piece of the costume, for now, his belt buckle.


I bought a pair of these earrings off eBay. I made a mold in mold putty and cold cast them with brass powder.

And that's everything up to date on the pronject, so far.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Just a small update, a friend of mine sculpted new Tunneler head and I will be casting that up shortly, as it's on the way here in the mail.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

So, the new Tunneler sculpt arrived a couple of days ago in the mail and, along with it came the new Kahn sculpt and a sculpt of Six-Shooter's boot. I'm going to try and get these all cast up this coming week.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

So, I went ahead and made the mold for the New Tunneler sculpt last night. For my mold box, I used an empty container of peanut butter pretzels. I let it settle over night and just cast up the first head.

The first casting from the mold.

 

[Odin82]

Great work so far. I've picked up a couple of the

1:1 Replicas

on sale over the years from the official site. Can usually grab them for about $100 at sales. Been following your thread with interest. Always wanted to tackle making one, especially a pinhead.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Great work so far. I've picked up a couple of the

1:1 Replicas

on sale over the years from the official site. Can usually grab them for about $100 at sales. Been following your thread with interest. Always wanted to tackle making one, especially a pinhead.

If you decide to start on building Pinhead. Pm me and I'll help you with parts.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

So, time for a fairly big update. I am in the midst of having the action figure of Leech Woman from the 90's scanned, with the intention of scaling the files up to create accurate bodies for Replicas.

 

[DinoDino]

Now you just need to make the trunk that they all can be stored it. I love the films and you did great work on these.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Have you tackled Blade yet? Also where do you get your clothes for them? I'm going to be making a custom Blade replica here but cannot find the proper clothing for him. Trying to be as screen-accurate as possible but I'm having issues finding the right stuff.

I've got his body sorted out. He has temporary clothes for the moment.

 

[Chris VanVlair]

Now you just need to make the trunk that they all can be stored it. I love the films and you did great work on these.

I have a trunk, I am just needing supplies and certain tools to convert it.