material
Armature
Puppet
Definition
The internal structure that holds poses between frames, from wire builds to ball-and-socket metal skeletons and printed/mechanical assemblies.
Overview
An armature is the internal, poseable skeleton of a stop-motion puppet. It holds a pose between frames and gives the animator repeatable, controllable movement; without one a figure would sag or drift under its own weight across the hundreds of incremental adjustments a shot requires.
Two families dominate. Wire armatures -- twisted aluminium or steel wire -- are inexpensive and quick to build, but the wire work-hardens and eventually fatigues, limiting a puppet's lifespan. Ball-and-socket armatures use machined joints whose tension can be tuned and re-tightened; they are durable and precise, the standard for feature production, but costlier and slower to fabricate.
A modern ball-and-socket kit shows what that precision looks like in practice: Animation Supplies' Standard Armature Kit is built almost entirely from stainless steel, combining double-jointed ball-and-socket joints for the widest range of motion with single-pivot fixed joints where only natural, human-like movement is needed, plus dedicated toe joints so animators can produce natural walk cycles instead of a flat-footed shuffle. The feet carry a threaded tie-down system compatible with magnetic stage plates, so the finished skeleton locks straight into the animator's rig without extra hardware.
A third family is now emerging: 3D-printed metal skeletons. On Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022), puppets built by Mackinnon and Saunders used armatures engineered by Richard Pickersgill, who paired his background as a traditional armature maker with 3D printing in metal alloys that, in puppet supervisor Georgina Hayns's words, "lend themselves more for puppet skeletons than the metals that they started off printing with" -- producing joint structures the studio had not built before. The same production is also a caution against over-engineering a joint: an attempt at ball-and-socket eyes under silicone mechanical skins failed, because raising an eyebrow pulled the skin away from the socket edge, and the team ultimately built the character's eyes into carved wooden knots instead.
Workflow
- Design the skeleton to the character's proportions and the range of motion the shots need.
- Choose the joint system: wire for short-lived or budget puppets, machined ball-and-socket for durability and repeatability, or 3D-printed metal joints where a feature's schedule and budget can support developing a bespoke skeleton.
- Build and test the armature bare, checking every joint holds a pose without creep.
- Add tie-down points in the feet for fixing the puppet to the set.
- Build the body, skin and costume around the finished, tested armature -- and pressure-test any small mechanical joint (such as an eye) under the actual skin material before committing, since a skin that moves can defeat a joint that works perfectly bare.