Singing Face design

[JohnMck]

starting to plan 2018 displays for Halloween and Christmas.

I am thinking of DIY wireframes for pumpkin faces like one I have seen on videos.  4' x 4' or so.  I want to use RGB and was wondering about RGB strips.  Anyone have a design and advice on the type of lights to use?

I have a beginning LOR setup that I used for 2017 but want to move to RGB & pixels.  any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

JohnMck

[mpageler]

Since you'll generally dealing with curves,  led strips would not works. Strips would need to be facing forward and will not bent side to side, only front to back.

Lots of past threads on singing face/tree designs and light options.  Do a search by keyword "face frame" for thread title only. 

When considering RGB fopr faces,  be castious  in not trying to make the faces overly coverful ..multi-colored.   For faces, you want a coordinated look that concentrates on the singing action. IMO, that means a single color for the eyes and mouith and maybe a different color for outline if you wish. 

[jerrymac]

look into 3/8 rope lights rather than strips (strips are to delicate and very directional).

[JohnMck]

OK, great advice.  I'll try to search face frames in the threads for additional ideas and sources.  3/8 inch rope lights.  any source?  I can use the RGB strips for straight runs and outlining the house, etc.

thanks

JohnMck

[gsmith37064]

I used strips on the wire frame face and they worked great. I retired it and ended up going with coro faces and nodes.

You need to be careful with the strips.

Edited January 6, 2018 by gsmith37064

[Box on Rails]

I tried the RGb strips on the wire frames and was not happy with all the bends and kinks so I got a Coro tree. I used smart RGB pixels for the outline and Eyes and Dumb pixels for the mouth movements. I like the smart pixels for the outline because I use it for some good effects. Also the smart pixels for the eyes allows me to make the tree go from happy to sad to angry with just a few tweaks. here is a  test run from 2016 Christmas. This might help you see some of the possibilities you can implement.

 

[mpageler]

A lot of us have used 3/8" rope for singing faces/trees.   It comes in 110 AC  in either incandecent or LED.   Incand rope can be cut as little as 20" segments while LED is much longer at 3ft plus.   I built 1 4x4 and 3 3x3 facs  and used about 150: of rope, no outlines, only 2 eye and 5 mouth segements.  If I had it over to do, would probably go with led rope and check into getting either natural or cool white versus warm white.  As I've added other rgb light elements, the faces come across a little yellow compared to the rest fo the display. 

[MGoBlue102]

Is there a reason you want to change the color of the element?  I made my singing pumpkin from bullets last year ( think they were 5mm).  It just did not seem worth the nightmare effort dealing with pixel configurations for all the parts of the face when I could have done the same thing in LED bulbs and a regular controller.  This year, I plan on using LED on my faces and keeping it simple.  On, Off is the only thing required regarding programming.  If you go with pixels, the bullets work the same as LED's with regard to flexibility but just seem to labor intensive for what it was worth.

[caniac]

On 1/5/2018 at 7:07 PM, JohnMck said:

OK, great advice.  I'll try to search face frames in the threads for additional ideas and sources.  3/8 inch rope lights.  any source?  I can use the RGB strips for straight runs and outlining the house, etc.

thanks

JohnMck

It comes down to what you want to use for your frames.  Doug at WireFram D'Lites has an awesome selection of singing wire frames for Halloween and Christmas.  For those you would most likely want to use rope lights (or you could clip standard LED's to them).  He does four foot square variations as well as six foot square.  If you are set on pixels then Holiday Coro and Boscoyo Studios has more than a few options for push thru pixels.

[default]

If you decide to use rope lighting, you can buy white rope lighting and then cover it with translucent vinyl of different colors, ie. red for lips, hair color, eye color, etc. If you have a local sign shop, stop in and ask if they have any remnants of translucent vinyl. Most shops will have a bunch and willing to give it to you or sell at a cheap price. Be sure to ask for translucent, not opaque. Opaque is to dark and will not let enough light thru. Examples below.

Hobby shops also sell translucent vinyl for covering the wings of RC planes, from what I saw, it is too translucent and won't give a good color.

Also try not to mix LED rope lights with incandescent rope lights on the same prop. Led and incandescent lights can take different amount of time to light. If you have a mix of these two lights, then LED's may light slower than the incandescent rope lights. I have this issue with one of my faces, part of it's light a slight bit quicker than the rest. I've learned to adjust the on/off time of this props, but it is not necessary on my other face with just one style of lights on it.

Alan...