Von Neuman Moderator Animatronic Robot (pt1)

In Drab Future, The Von Neuman Moderators are the eyes and hands of the network. These agents exist to gather information and track resources, in order to expand the network and build more of them selves. While I could see that the power armored version could be a costume, I realized this character wouldn’t be able to be a person in a suit. Once the armor has been stripped away we need to be able to see their inhumanity.

Its long been a dream of mine to have a real, working, robot. I know a working autonomous bVon Neuman Moderator Animatronic Robot pt1iped with an AI is far out of my depth, but I want one that can be programmed to act in movies, run my booth at conventions, talk to people and hand out flyers. Even something like the animatronic band at Chuck E Cheese.

I have begun these videos as a behind the scenes for some of the construction. As usual I’m relying on as many found and prefab parts as I can to achieve the mechanical production look and move as quickly through the construction as I can. I’ve started with the Wowee toys Elvis Alive, which I was lucky enough to find on Ebay when a warehouse was liquidating their stock. For the body I’m starting with a posable mannequin which is similar in design to the wooden artist pose figures. This was given to me by a friend who was working in an art supply store. It had some minor damage and the store was cleaning out their storage and intended to throw it away. Truly a lucky score, I’ve never seen any others before or since. I’ve often thought about making molds from it to replicate more of them.

I’ve been planning on using the Wowee toys Elvis somewhat unmodified, at least electronically, because its really a great system. It uses a cartridge that contains songs and animation files. There is even a group of very clever folks doing some very cool hacks using them. I figured if I could avoid any major changes I wouldn’t need to teach myself arduino and robotic programming (yet) and follow along with this;
http://www.robocommunity.com/article/13840/Controlling-WowWee-s-Alive-Elvis-Part-2-Custom-Cartridge/

I even attempted to recruit someone to help me etch a custom circuit board part to make my own cartridge, unfortunately it never panned out. Basically this part is a xD media adapter to custom cartridge, which allows this ‘toy’ robot to play back animation files and mp3s.

This thread has a lot of detail about it, as well as included a diagram of the board I’d need to create;
http://www.robocommunity.com/forum/thread/13761/Elvis-Cartridge-has-been-hacked-updated-Article-is-on-the-way/

Continued in part 2…

Von Neuman Moderator Animatronic Robot (pt2)

The Witness Costume

The Witness

All along I’ve been trying to make as much of The Witness wearable as possible. Parts such as the helmet/cowl and vest are removable from the puppet, as well as the leg pads.

That way for wide or long shots he could move around with a bit more agility without having to resort to stop motion or other puppetry for every shot he was in.

Since the head of the puppet is cast aluminum and too small to be wearable I was forced to create a secondary mask for the actor to wear.

As the character and story evolved the costume version of the character took shape and evolved. I envisioned the witness as having different ‘modes’ and modular limbs, so he would be able to change form as needed. From his wheeled interior-workshop mode, to extended legs

and finally his fully extended exterior form integrating inspiration from sources such as the land striders from Dark Crystal and the Wheelers from Return to Oz.

I tried on The Witness costume in full last night at my workshop in Zero Friend’s warehouse in Oakland with the help of Kyle and Leslie. I’ve been working on the elements for this form separately for a while now, but it was exciting to see them all on at once.

full Flickr Gallery

Creating the Gynoid

(Print available at Unethical Productions)
 
The Gynoid was the first part of this world I envisioned. Inspired by the opening sequences of ‘Hardware’ and ‘Battle angel’. I knew this would be the story of a salvaged fembot, found in the wasteland, and repaired.

I knew she had to have a sense of beauty, of sex appeal, but not seem quite human.I looked all around at reference, at Japanese Ball-joint dolls, like super Dollfie and handmade ones, I looked to surrealist Hans Bellmer, to anime style and 80s horror, fashion and fetish. I even trolled through the forums of RealDoll owners, looking to the way they store and even fabricate their own versions.

I began her construction with a PVC armature. Planned out all the joints with 90 degree angles and i strung it together with elastic string like tent poles. This gave me a rigid body but was still able to hinge via the rotation along the angle joints.

Then I blocked it out; attached pink insulation foam blocks to the armature.

I applied cans of ‘Great stuff’ spray foam to fill gaps. I really love this stuff, its tricky and drippy, but once you get the hang of it it can be like 3D spraypaint.

Carved the blocks and spray foam once it cured;

repeated that process until the shape felt close;

I’d also shape the foam by hand a bit as it cured by layering it with foil to prevent it from sticking to my skin. I also considered making her body chrome.

The last stage was using a high density two part liquid foam to fill any remaining gaps and get a really uniform surface.

I chopped up some Furby eye mechanisms and rigged them together

Cut the eyes out of the foam

I created a geared mechanism from lego parts to move the jaw.

I was able to find a pair of wooden artist model hands, which found their way to her at this point.
The next step was to cover over the body with fiberglass, an extremely difficult and time consuming process.

Each part had to be wrapped individually with woven fiberglass cloth, and sealed with resin.

once the parts had been sealed there were the occasional wrinkle, it was too hard to get the cloth completely smooth,

I spent a lot of time sanding the parts smooth again

Until she fit back together

She needed some mechanical detailing, so I added tubing, some brass fittings and the top of a can to be her feul tank

It was tricky but I found a proper wig for her and started dressing her up in real clothing;

Some black wash of paint, to ‘dirty her up.’ Using thin ink/acryllic like this seeps into the texture and cracks to give her the old porcylin texture I was looking for.;

Gynoid WIP gallery on Flickr