INSTRUCTIONS: Humanly Posable Armature

Thank you for your interest in Humanly Posable Armature for stop motion puppets.
The kits are now retired – get the parts from Morezmore Store and follow the instructions.
Watch me building puppets step by step at https://www.patreon.com/morezmore. Current puppet is always on Free Access.

Here is how to go about it if it is your first time:
1. Draw your puppet in full scale on paper
2. Read through one of the Example Maps (see below) to understand the workings of the joints and connections.
3. Get the physical measurements of the joints from www.morezmore.com listings and mark the joints off on your drawing where you want the joints.
4. Count the joints and calculate how many parts you will need for all the joints. We sell packs of 1 and 18 joints sets.
5. Measure the distance between joints – that will be the length of the threaded rods (the spine and limbs that you will need). In place of rods, you can use aluminum wire 10G 2.5mm diameter (M00091 morezmore stock number).
6. Make the final list of all parts.
7. If you have questions, you can reach me through instagram @morezmorestudio
8. Come to www.morezmore.com and make an intelligent, well-thought-through, cost-efficient order for your custom puppet.
We sell parts in quantities of 1 (one), 10 and 50 pieces, get only what you need.

Thank you!

Example Armature Maps:
SCAMP Armatures
Woosskie SCAMP Full Monty Armature Shopping List
Serling Armature Map (10.5″ tall, slender man, fortified armature)
Big Ben Armature Map (9.5″ tall, heavy-set man, fortified armature)
Larger 13.5″ tall custom puppet map
Cat and Thomas Armature (8.5″ or 22 cm)
Murdoch Armature (10.5″ or 27 cm)
Henry Armature (14″ or 35.5 cm)

HPA-2R Simple Kits (M00272 Starter Kit, M00272 Hardware Only)
HPA-M2R Basic Kits (M01110 Starter Kit, M01141 Hardware Only)
HPA-M3 Standard Kits (M01254 Starter Kit, M01359 Hardware Only)
HPA-M3 Superflex Kits (M00020 Starter Kit, M00862 Hardware Only)
Pipe Cleaners Hand Armature
Hand Armature Kit (M01039, M01074)
Feet Armature Kit (M0404)
Magnetic Wrist Joints Kit (M00220)
Animatable Stop Motion Puppet Eyes

Humanly Posable Armature (HPA) project purpose is to use stop-motion style armature in art dolls/figures/puppets, to make them move and pose.

As I am discovering, there are several ways to do the same joint or connection, so look at HPA as an “Erector” type construction set for dolls.

Professional stop-motion armatures are wonderful, but pretty hard to make. They are made by professional artists craftsmen in a metal machine shop with all the power equipment. The result is fantastic.

As I don’t see myself doing machine tooling, I wanted a set of standardized interconnecting parts to create my own custom size and custom purpose armatures. And they should be somewhat affordable.

I have been thinking about this cross-industry project for about a year, looking for standard steel parts all over the internet, figuring out shapes and sizes from photos, converting metrics millimeters to US inches and back, talking to vendors, buying the parts, waiting for international delivery, trying to fit them together. Some of them are standard hardware parts, and some of them I had to order custom.

Then I got finally all the parts together and made Monsieur Poirot, as an experiment. Folks on Facebook really liked Poirot and the whole idea. Inspired, I am continuing and will be glad to see other artists joining me on this project (using stop motion armature for OOAK doll). Your questions and comments are welcome. Thank you!