Putting Moving Eyes in Small Characters.

I am often asked how you make eyes move in the little characters you make. There are some descriptions and photos in some previous blog entries, but here is a review of how Hoss got his facial features.

Here is Hoss' head viewed from above before the installation of his eyes. The end of the 1/4" dowel you see runs up through Hoss' body. His lower jaw is glued onto the end of the dowel and is shaped so as the rod moves up and down an 1/8", so to does the jaw.

The slot in the dowel is where the brass rod that will move the eyes comes into the head.

Note also the two small holes entered over the eye sockets. This is where the pins that the eyes pivot on are installed.

The slots cut on either side of the head are where the plate attached to the brass rod moves the eyes slides up and down. It can be seen in another photo.

In this view you can see the holes for the pivot rods in the bottom of the eye sockets.

Here is the brass plate that the arms on the back of the eye ball protrude through. Because they are angled as the plate moves up and down the eyes are forced to move left and right.

Here Is the eye balls installed with the motion plate installed. The pivots pins can be shown before they are trimmed.

After this the brass rod is soldered to the plate, the head is painted an the hat is glued on to retain the assembly.

And here is Hoss...