Singing Santa with 8 channels

[dgrusty]

I'm planning to do a DIY singing Santa with multiple mouth positions (as opposed to just open/closed), like the singing tree and singing monsters. Has anyone done this, and if so can you share any pictures or patterns you may have used ?

[dibblejr]

6 hours ago, dgrusty said:

I'm planning to do a DIY singing Santa with multiple mouth positions (as opposed to just open/closed), like the singing tree and singing monsters. Has anyone done this, and if so can you share any pictures or patterns you may have used ?

I have an 8 channel singing santa that I made. No pics and no vis, not needed since I just use my trees and pumpkins for animations.

I will give you some tips though. The smaller the mouth / lips the more crisp the words look. Keep that in mind. The C9 singers are a good prop to get the lip shapes but don't be scared to go outside the norm.

Also the HC singing/ guitar snowman has great shapes. My baby trees look better than my large trees just because the mouth/ lips are smaller. The same as my pumpkins both large and my baby pumpkin patch the mouths are smaller than the normal purchased ones.

Also before finalizing your design, try to keep your bulb counts as close to 50 as possible. No more that 1" apart center to center. Off set any holes that intersect. Some points will be close together and that's fine. Keeping the counts close to 50 ensure you can get them from the big box stores and 50s- 100s are typical. You will pay premium prices for 10, 20, 35 bulb counts and there are only a couple places I know of that even sell the smaller strands.

Whatever lights you will be using pick the correct bit. Keep in mind not all bulb sockets are the same. If your holes are to large its a PITA to fix it. Better to try a 1/8 bit. It will make a mess but its easy to clean up. 

Also paint- if you get creative and paint after drilling holes. This will give you something that will also look good in the daytime. 

You can get "FREE" coroplast from gas stations in the form of their promotional signs (pepsi, coke, Mt Dew) they will be smaller and a little thinner 3-4 mm but mounted on 2x4 frames are solid as a rock. Mount to frame before inserting bulbs. 

To save your fingers in case you need to remove a bulb or strand get a wire nut and use that to help push them back through. Its cheap and fast. Wrap a piece of electrical tape around your fingers to prevent blisters. Gloves just don't work well in handling the bulbs.

I think Ive share a singing pumpkin sequence or 2 with you so you can see them in the animation within SE.

Its fun, just get creative.

My singing spider prop has 8 channels and ears (designed by my wife) so what could I say. Everyone loves it. 

JR

[dgrusty]

Thanks for the tips JR. I actually made my own skeleton based on the HC skeleton monster. Ended up getting a 4 x 8 foot piece of coroplast from Home Depot and cut in half. Using the second half for Santa. Came out pretty goid if I do say myself, though sore fingers from trying to punch holes rather than still. I did use the face sequences you shared (Thanks to you and James, and others for sharing) and came out very cool. 

As for Santa, didn't quite follow what you did. The tree and pumpkin mouths are just too big for Santa. Did you just reduce scale for Santa or do something else? 

Also (side note) working on a singing face sequence myself use Papgayo, etc. May ask you for some tips later.

Dale

[dibblejr]

Dale

I was just using those mouths as an example as the different sizes. My pumpkin faces which have a very different mouth shape in comparison to the larger mouths of the HC monsters look much sharper. Sometimes the large monster mouths and tree mouths appear laggy.

while making the Santa or any mouth just make the size in accordance with 2 things. The prop size and distance from viewing area. If you make the mouth to small it will be difficult for people to see it from far away.

Feel free to ask away with sequencing the faces. Keep in mind I do not use papagayo but did so can still assist you.

JR