SANDY COLLORA: This is also commonly referred to as a swivel joint,
and it's usually used in the head of an action figure.
This is an action figure I did
way back in the day for a company called Mezco.
This is the Captain Nemo Wave Rider action figure.
And as you can see, his head
has a disc joint in it,
which allows for movement right and left.
And that is held together
by the surface of the neck
hitting the surface of the inside of the upper torso
on a pin that just turns right and left
and gives you a basic head movement.
So, the head of our figure
is going to have a disc in it
because what we're going to do is,
you want the head to be able to turn
right and left.
So, the head
is going to be a disc joint. Okay?
Again, there's several ways to accomplish this.
You can either use two pre-fabricated,
you can either use Delrin,
any kind of plastic disc
and insert it into your sculpture with a metal pin.
Or you can simply just sculpt the neck part flat on both sides
and use the part of your armature that comes out,
to go into the small hole
and it basically achieves the same effect.
So that's joint number one, is a disc joint
and we're actually going to be using that
on our action figure today
that we're going to be roughing out.
So, we'll have a disc joint in the head
for movement there.
Okay?
We're also going to be using disc joints in the legs.
Okay?
This is going to allow movement of the legs
forward and back. Okay?
Again, exactly the same as we have on this
Captain Nemo figure here, by Mezco.
This is, this is actually what we call a test shot.
This is typically what you're going to get back from the factory
before they actually produce your painted action figure.
What they'll do is they'll send your client,
it's usually one color,
basically of the action figure
that you've sculpted and produced.
So you basically okay this and say
"Okay the joints are fine, it looks fine,
the way that everything was put together.
Go ahead and now produce the final action figure
that is now going to ship."
So, again you can see,
he's got a disc joint in his leg,
which is gonna allow
for movement forward and back.
Okay?
Now, a much more complicated action figure
would have a different kind of joint in there,
which would allow lateral movement of the legs
and all different kinds of stuff
which is not going to be covered here.
Because what I want to do is,
I want to show you the basics.
Once you have the basic building blocks
of how the basic joints work,
it's really easy to figure out how the rest of them work.
So, the second joint
that we're gonna talk about today,
is what we call a ball and socket joint.
It works very similar to the way
your arms go into your shoulders
or your legs go into your hips.
It's basically a round ball
on the end of
some sort of appendage,
whether this be an arm or
some appendage that sticks off the creature,
if it's a creature-based figure.
And what's gonna happen, is this ball,
that you're gonna use acrylic balls
to make, okay,
is going to slide into a socket
that you create on the action figure,
which allows
movement not only backwards and forwards,
but lateral as well.
So, most arm joints
on most action figures
are these ball and socket joints
as you can see.
We can move up and down
and it can also move around.
Okay?
This joint is the most popular joint
on any action figure because what it does,
is it provides the greatest range of motion.
So, there are action figures that do utilize these now
in the heads and the legs and the waist and the torso,
because it does allow for the most vast and -----
range of motion.
So we're going to be incorporating that in this figure as well.
So, his arms which on this particular creature
we have four of them,
these are all going to be ball joints.
Ball and socket joints,
we're gonna have four of them. Okay?
So that basically means
on the ends of each of the last appendage of these arms -
the last section of these arms,
we're gonna have a little acrylic ball
- just like this -
that we're going to attach
to the end of the sculpture,
that's going to fit into a hole
that we carve into the body of the sculpture
that will allow for the range of motion.
Okay, so we're gonna have four of those.
One, two, three, four.
So these will all be your ball and socket joints.
Okay, so that's number two.
The last joint that I'm going to tell you about is a,
just for your own basic knowledge,
in this course we're gonna be, only be covering one and two,
in this figure, it's only going to utilize
joints number one and two.
We're going to be using disc joints and ball and socket.
But I wanted to tell you about the hinge joint,
which is a little bit more complex,
a little bit harder to learn
and a little bit harder to incorporate into the figure
because what it is, is it basically combines
your ball and socket joint with the disc joint.
It's a ball and socket that works basically like your elbow
or your knee would
to extend outwards, backwards and forwards,
or just like your arm would.
So, you've got this ball and socket joint,
say on the lower leg of an action figure.
But what they do is they route out
a section for a disc that goes in there
on the upper portion of it
that a pin goes through and holds it together.
That results in
what we call a hinge joint,
which is commonly used in the legs and elbows
of most action figures to provide this kind of
back and forth, up and down movement.
So, there ya have it.
Those are your three basic kinds of joints
that you'll see on any action figure.
When you're speaking to your client
about what kind of figure you're going to be making
- whether they're providing the designs to you or not -
the point of articulation will always come up,
it's a very important
part of making an action figure.
And it's what separates an action figure
from a collectible statue or figurine,
or even doing a maquette.