it is secured with hot glue so if fairly easy to pull off. Begin to fold back the branches to expose the inner workings. Some of the branches are attached to the upper mouth and can be pulled off. They are kind of woven in but are easy to untwist. Then start folding back the branches on the other side of the tree. Be careful for the light sensor (a little black tube) in the center of the tree. This is also attached with hot glue and can pulled off gently so you do not break the wires. When you fold back the rest of the branches you will discover more branches that make up the rest of the mouth. Separate these and bend back out of the way. This will free up the mouth assembly.
The eyes are also covered with branches and can easily be removed later. Ok now take a pair of wire cutters and carefully cut the tow plastic ties. These hold the wire trunk to the face mechanism. A couple of twists and the whole branches come right off the stand. Now you are left with the animated face mechanics and a nice little fake tree. Finally pull of any remaining branches from the eyes. I use a needle nose pliers and gently peel them off. A few more adjustments are needed if making a human head.
First I removed the large lower jaw plate, it is held on by four small screws on the bottom. I also moved the whole mouth assembly up about 3" closer to the eyes. Unfortunately there is no way to move the eyes closer together.
The next step is to build a core on which to sculpt the head. I slowly built up a newspaper core to make a solid head shape. Then I covered this with plastaline modeling clay. I spent a few hours until I achieved a face I liked.
continued on next page.
I then made an armature for the hand holding the lantern. I will sculpt the hands over this with clay.
To be continued........
