Making Prototype Bird Puppet

During workshops with Mary Murphy, I began to make a prototype puppet of the Bird Twins. We had to make a scale drawing and work from that. I didn't think I'd like to work from a scale drawing but actually it was really helpful and i want to make some some really well drawn scale drawings to display as part of my degree show. I think I need to improve on my technical drawing.

And (as luck would have it, not....) I can't find my scale drawing to put on here. But its all ok as I will be re-drawing it for the final puppet any way.

Referring back to the scale drawing

I made a wire armature using the scale drawing as a size guide. Then I made the 'bones' with polymorph. 

Polymorph strip cut to 3x width of wire

The chest is made from neoprene foam (yoga blocks) that I cut to shape. I glued this in two halves over a miliput core. The foam is very dense so it means there is a hard surface to hold whilst animating, meaning there will be no 'travelling' of skin, clothing etc.

To make the flexible form for the body I used wadding that I pulled into strips and wrapped around the armature. Using spray mount to glue it down and stitching to create shape. I prefer carving in foam, although this method is quicker. But foam carving gives more detail, in my opinion.

The head needs to be as light weight as possible. I used Lightweight Sculpy for the core and then made the rest of the head in normal Sculpy over the cooked core. K & S is used for easy attachment of heads, hands etc. This is inserted into the raw core before it is cooked and the head built around it. To make a moveable jaw wire is also inserted into the lightweight core as are eyes (if they don't need to move).

Diagram form my notebook on how to make the lightweight core.

I used miliput to make the feet and a tie-down in the bum of my puppet as I want it to be able to sit. To make the tie-downs in the feet i simply made several holes with a pin and stretched them out as miliput shrinks as it dries. The tie-down in the bum was made with a screw so it is more sturdy.

The orange chest is the neoprene foam, cut to shape.

Tie-down in bum.

After much wrapping of wadding. The tie-down is just visible, nicely hidden!

Prototype head made from Lightweight Sculpy, Sculpy and K&S

Prototype head no1.

Once the flexible body had been made I then added clothing. This was done by retro-fitting fabric to the puppet. I used old tights as the weave is small enough not to look out of proportion and the nylon stretches two ways and sticks well to copydex (used in very small amounts to make hems). I had to sew very carefully to make neat seams that were the right proportion and that weren't too visible.

I used real feathers as a ruff.

Need to make the second head before doing animation tests....