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Build-a-Bad Animatronic

@fnafbot-blog / fnafbot-blog.tumblr.com

and then stuff your face into it
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hi, i just wanted to show you the springtrap i made using your template! i noticed you seem to enjoy seeing what people make with your templates so i thought id share (i hope im not being annoying)

YOOOOOOO you bet!  That looks amazing!  Especially considering you made it under a time crunch??  I’m so happy my templates are being used to make such cool things.  It’s incredible.  You guys are incredible.  Thank you (all) for being talented and sharing your work with us :D

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I don't know if tumblr ate my last ask but if it did THAT IS OK. I have questions I actually couldn't answer by looking through your archives. 1- How do the eyelids go in and open/close in unison? The way i have the lids now they keep falling out and don't move together. 2- How do I keep the eyes from moving forward and backward once they are installed in the head? Without support they shake as if it were an earthquake :x

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(Given the last ask I figure you don’t need this any more, but I’ll go ahead and post in the event that someone else wants this info!)

I’ve used a couple different techniques in different masks–

The first thing you’ll want to do is give your eyelids an axis of rotation.  If you have a drill or Dremel on hand, make holes on opposite sides of each lid, near the rim, and poke your paper fasteners or other similarly shaped objects through the holes:

If no hole-making tool is available, hot glue works decently well, especially if you reinforce it:

The pins will stick into the foamcore base on either side of each eye, such that the lid can rotate freely around the eyeball (until it hits the eye stalk or support)  It should be able to at least make a full blink without running into anything. 

The final templates will have markers for where the pins go, but for now you’re on your own (it’s pretty easy to figure out once you see what you’re doing though)

As for the mechanisms themselves: I did it a couple different ways on different masks.

Foxy 1.0 has a single servo which pulls the eyes open (with fishing line cables threaded through the mask) when it turns one way, and pulls them closed when it turns the other.  This generates a lot of friction and not all that much movement, so overall I don’t recommend it.

ShadowBun also has a single servo, this time connected to each lid with stiff metal wires.  The wires are the same length and shape, so the eyes move in unison.  Because there’s very little friction (the wires are going through holes in the faceplate that are wide enough for them to pass freely) the servo can move them as quickly as needed.  I actually had to slow down the blinking in the code, because I wanted something a little smoother.  (Blinking mechanism is at about 1:05)

(Note that the four new templates are different than ShadowBun and Springtrap in that the eyeballs are on the inside of the faceplate.  You’ll need to adjust your mechanism accordingly.)

Foxy 2.0 has one servo per eye. They’re set up similarly to ShadowBun’s, with each servo arm connected to a stiff wire which moves the lid up and down.  From inside the mask:

The servos can be programmed to move together, but they could also be told to wink, or do a sleepy blink, or anything that requires the eyelids to act independently of each other (things that are not possible with a single servo setup).  I haven’t done any of that with Foxy, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

On to the second thing:  To keep the eyes from wobbling, you need to stabilize them up near the eye.  They’re already constrained at the base.  For the original chica template I had some loop pieces that clipped into the faceplate…but they disappeared somewhere in the evolution of these new masks ._.  It’s another thing I’ll need to go back and add in to all the new templates, but like the lid supports it’s something that’s fairly easy to freehand (I don’t have any great pictures but you can kinda see where I put them, here):

Just make sure the stalks can still rotate freely (they shouldn’t be pinched in or the servo will have to do extra work) and you should be good to go.

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Nooooo your askbox is closed! I’m making the Freddy, I got all the electronic parts and after retrofitting your schematic to work on a Uno instead of a Pro Mini I have a question! Where did the sound sensors go ;w; Is it in the ear? beneath the fur on the head? It’s so close to being animatronic >m<

I know I’m sorry </3  I’m completely torn because I have a ton of stuff to respond to and post already but I also don’t want to miss out on new asks, and what with moving and job searching and slow internet I definitely don’t have time to do both (or either tbh) :’(

So ideally I don’t want to be using the submit box as an alternative to asks BUT seeing as you’ve gotten so much done (and I really really want to see it finished so there may be a bias lol whoops)...

Foxy has hollow tubes for hinges instead of dowel rods, and his hinges are wider so there’s room for a sensor inside the tubes (red arrow).  With the templates, you probably won’t have room even if you use something hollow like PVC, so you’ll need to figure out some other unobtrusive place to put them.  I don’t think you’d want them behind a layer of fabric (maybe try it, though?  I’m imagining fabric, especially fur, would dull the sensitivity but I could be wrong).  I’m thinking your best bet would be to stash them directly behind the hinges (green arrow). 

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Where ever you end up placing them, the most important things are that the microphone bits need to be pointing away from the mask, and that there’s something solid in between the two of them so that the left mic doesn’t pick up too many sounds from the right, and vice versa.

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veskasa

I have wanted nothing more than to keep this whole project under wraps until I was completely done with it, but I see so many other people struggling to find a way to move the gosh-dang ears that I decided to share at least one thing I discovered a little while ago while building my head.

You’ll need bolt cutters to get these babies down to the correct length—unless your ears turn out to be longer than mine, but otherwise this is the motion you’ll get out of them. It adds some weight, but they always return to shape and, as was my end goal, it allows the tall ear to be bent over to get through doorways. Make sure you reinforce the side of the head where you install these also. I haven’t seen any huge problems with cracking, but I didn’t want to risk it so I reinforced the foam core right away regardless.

Special thanks to fnafbot for the initial templates as well, and hopefully this will be a somewhat viable solution to help out that spring problem everyone has been having.

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fnafbot-blog

:O  They do have a really nice slow movement to ‘em.  Good call reinforcing the foam core, the way I had it almost certainly would have broken one way or another.  I’ll have to get a few of these next time I’m at the hardware store.  Thanks so much for sharing!

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sorry about that! i figured out the problem! (the piece was flipped :O )

i do have one questions though

the jaw piece wasn’t included in the template and i was wondering if i can get it somewhere?

Glad you figured it out :)  As for the jaw piece (I assume you’re talking about the jaw cup that goes around the wearer, not a part of the mask itself) it’s not currently a part of the Springtrap templates but it is in the other four--you can either print out a page from one of the other templates or make it from scratch (unlike the mask itself, it doesn’t have any precise pieces and just needs to be the right size to fit around your chin).

This post shows the general setup that I used for ShadowBun and Sprigntarp.

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Ok here I am showing how the head looks. I apologize in advance because I don’t know how to bump up the video quality, it looked good on my iPhone.

I made the ears move by attaching two pieces of pvc pipes of various sizes and hot glued a spring between them to hold it together.

The teeth are from a cheap bone/caveman necklace I found on amazon.

The eye moves but it is manual, not electrical.

The circuit board in Mangle and the endoskeleton head come from an old alarm clock.

Her “skin” is satin I bought at Walmart.

And lastly, her nose is spray-painted foam with a toy squeaker in it.

I am able to move the jaw by having a loop go under my chin at the very end of Mangle’s jaw. The weight of her jaw and springs holing the two jaws together allow it to hang open like that. So when I open my mouth, Mangle’s closes. I chose to do this because in the game her mouth hangs open all the time and I don’t want to have mine get sore from doing that all day.

If you or anyone else is interested you can find me on deviantart as TheDireBarbwire.

Ohhh man that is so cool!  I love seeing the different mechanisms and materials people use for their builds.  The eye movement looks great-- I bet it’ll give plenty of people a hard double take before they figure it out, especially if you pass off the hand movement as scratching your nose or something  8) 

Submitted by anonymous
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springsmut said: erg, i can’t see them either.

Well shoot.

koolstorym8 said: Oh sorry about that!  I am kind of new to tumblr so I am not sure how to fix it…. I will figure something out real quick hold up

It would help if the website didn’t completely change its interface every time one logs on -_-  For all I know the submission worked when you sent it and broke by the time I’m here to post it.

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My animatronic build. Was here from the beginning!

My animatronic(s)!

I have learned so much from this freaking project. I went from total noob at these things to being confident to do them again:

Arduino Programming

Sculpting (Foam, plastic, EVEN METAL)

OHMS LAW (so much resisting)

Voltage regulation

How tumblr works (Yep.)

AND SO MUCH MORE ENGINEERING TYPE STUFF. This is mostly because I had started back when the first foxy tutorial was released. I was relatively on my own for the shapes of stuff.

It’s also my fault because I wanted to do FNAF 2 style foxy and freddy

A wild foxy with only one eye appears!

A side view:

The Emcee himself, freddy!

More pics to come later on my tumblr! Thank you sir/ma'am for your inspiration. Your blog should be called Build a Bad A** animatronic!

The reason I am making these is not just for fun either. I am running my charity benefit event with a FNAF theme this Halloween. Full office and setting and ambience and everything! I don’t make a dime doing this. I just feel like it’s a good idea!I am trying to raise money for my local food bank in Utah.

http://j.mp/1ffmdpC <<<shameless Website plug (Subscribe to our newsletter to see and other stuff to see official media about the event!)

Shameless donation plug >>> http://j.mp/1HBRm2C (those who donate are treated better than those who don’t) (It’s a crowdfunding thing)

I don’t have anything to add other than 1) dang man, congratulations on taking the plunge and learning so much!

and 2) I can’t see any pictures* :’(

*on second thought it could be my terrible terrible internet--someone let me know if you can see ‘em!

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Broken ask page + Questions.

I wanted to inform you that your ask page is either broken or isn’t working for me. :( Either way, I was wondering what you would suggest if you were trying to convert the Freddy template into a template for Withered Freddy, and what you would do to get his ears to wiggle like they do in the original FNAF Trailer. Thank you. :) - Matt

The ask box is turned off–I didn’t realize the link was still there so thanks for the heads up!

I have a tutorial for converting templates–basically you’ll need to print out the “starter” template of your choice, find a bunch of refs of your desired character, and then modify the shapes of the starter template until they look right.  It’s a lot easier to modify paper than it is foamcore, so do as much of your adjusting as you can in that stage (but expect to do a little once you’ve cut out the foamcore pieces as well).  In particular, make sure you have the shape of the eye holes and the angle of the ears right before you start cutting out foramcore, because those things will be both noticeable and hard to change.

To wiggle the ears like in the trailer you’ll probably need servos– springs would give you movement but it wouldn’t look exactly the same (cheaper and easier though so the tradeoff is up to you).  Foamcore ears would probably be light enough to connect directly to the servo arms, or you could experiment with hinge mechanisms to relieve some of the strain on the servo. 

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