Bending, entropy and proper affine actions of surface groups

We show that for any closed surface $S$ there is an explict neighborhood $V$ of the fuchsian locus in quasifuchsian space $\mathsf{QF}(S)$ such that for every representation $\rho\in V$ which is not fuchsian, there is a proper affine action on $\mathfrak{sl}(2,\mathbb{C})$ with linear part $\mathsf{Ad}(\rho)$. We further show that there is a larger neighborhood $U$ of the Fuchsian locus so that every critical point of the entropy function in $U$ lies on the Fuchsian locus.