The more I work on this project, the more comfortable I am with how long it has taken to come together. Everything seems to work out in time.
Perfect example: The Hulk's jaw and sound.
I started off thinking I just wanted the mouth to move. Horror house props with skulls that moved came to mind. It wasn't long before I found a site that had a system where the skull moved its mouth to speak when you spoke through a microphone. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Perfect example: The Hulk's jaw and sound.
I started off thinking I just wanted the mouth to move. Horror house props with skulls that moved came to mind. It wasn't long before I found a site that had a system where the skull moved its mouth to speak when you spoke through a microphone. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Then I really began to look at eye animatronics on YouTube. These things absolutely blew me away! So much can be done with facial animatronics. Scowls. Laughter. Roars! And since my head wouldn't be in the head of the Hulk anyway, I realized setting up a system to make the face move realistically could bring the suit to the next level.
The best stuff seemed to all be done by an artist named Gary Willet, so I messaged him, knowing that he must get a hundred messages or more a month. First we spoke by chat. I showed him the sculpt out of styrofoam I did awhile back, and the Arduino voice system. I think that got him interested because he started sending me voice messages. That's when we really got to know each other. Turns out that he lives just four hours away in Louisiana. And the dude is beyond expert-level.
I was still considering learning how to do the facial movements myself with his help. The more we talked about it, the more I realized for it to really look good, the learning curve would be gigantic. I decided to get him to do the heavy lifting instead, which was absolutely the right thing to do.
We communicated back and forth every day for months. I explained that on the current sculpt, the head was 13 inches wide and 17 inches long. He drew up a dummy skull in CAD to show me just how big the animatronics would be.
WOW!
That made me start thinking long and hard about just exactly how I wanted the Hulk's head to look. So many great looks from the OG Savage Hulk... to Handsome Keown Hulk... to Avengers Hulk... and Immortal Hulk.
That made me start thinking long and hard about just exactly how I wanted the Hulk's head to look. So many great looks from the OG Savage Hulk... to Handsome Keown Hulk... to Avengers Hulk... and Immortal Hulk.
Gary decided to model his own. (Without asking for my opinion... but that's okay because he's the best at what he does.)
Luckily, I really like it and can see it as working well with my costume.
Next, he modeled a jaw and the teeth separately.
Next, he modeled a jaw and the teeth separately.
Gary works with 3d printers too, so he ended up printing out the first version of the teeth! Took 24 hours to print.
They came out like a BEAST! Can you imagine??
We ended up making a design choice to do another set later that weren't so pretty - on purpose. The Hulk is ferocious, you know??
He printed the eyes and put them with the teeth to show me just how big this thing was gonna be. Trust me, I knew.
We ended up making a design choice to do another set later that weren't so pretty - on purpose. The Hulk is ferocious, you know??
He printed the eyes and put them with the teeth to show me just how big this thing was gonna be. Trust me, I knew.
With the basic hard parts printed, it was time for Gary to look at the servos.
What we ended up with gives an unbelievable level of expression: Eyes have 8 servos, lips have 10, brow 5, jaw 2, cheek bone 2, and the tongue even has one. That's a whopping 28 servos! (Not counting the head/neck)
Over on Gary's instagram (I highly suggest you go over there. Some REALLY cool stuff!), he posted a lip movement test. (https://www.instagram.com/p/CmhpXmcOXSI/)
And ever since then he's been improving the design, buying servos, and getting it working.
The end result should be:
The end result should be:
- The head will move with the wearer, using a remote RC FPS drone relay. I move my head and 4 servos move the head of the Hulk. Side to side and up and down.
- The animatronics on the face will respond to voice commands that are integrated into the Arduino system I have with the pre-existing voice box in the sound rig.
Using the diagram below, I really want to hone in on particular emotions that I can puppeteer with voice commands.
(If I had a dream, it would be to do something like David Corrubias did and link mo-cap to the servos to match my face, but that's a pipe dream).
I still think the various faces below CAN be mapped to the various servos and controlled in real time.
(If I had a dream, it would be to do something like David Corrubias did and link mo-cap to the servos to match my face, but that's a pipe dream).
I still think the various faces below CAN be mapped to the various servos and controlled in real time.
So went through and connected some of the audio lines to facial emotions:
Hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea of the experience I'm hoping to portray with the character.
When we get further in the build, I will update this topic.
When we get further in the build, I will update this topic.