La Maison Fantastique is a themed house near Paris that Alex Crafter and I have been building by hand since 2012. One room is an Egyptian tomb, set in the restroom, with a large Anubis statue standing between two plaster columns. This project is the head that sits on top of it.

The ears tilt back about 30 degrees, the way a dog's ear does. Each one rides on a ball joint hidden inside the skull, and a lever pulls the ear's axis backward. I worked the geometry out in Maya first, then built a mockup from off-the-shelf parts.

The first mockup taught me something. With a single attachment point, the ear also turned around its own rod under its weight, and the screws slowly worked loose. The fix: bond the ear rigidly to its arm.

The head is now painted and sits on its mechanism. The jaw is articulated and still moved by hand.

Next step: motorize the ears and the jaw, and sync the jaw with a recorded voice. Logs will follow each step.