A Big Bird puppet

[MUPPETMONKEY]

Hey there,

I have an assignment to build a walking puppet just like Big Bird (or Bear). I have every single Henson book and I've combed the net looking for, at least, some raw sample of the sectioned costume with no luck.
Of course I know that SW doesn't allow pictures of the Bird or Disney of Bear so I'm basically using my logic to build this character.
Please, tell me if I'm going the right way:

1) The feet are customized shoes,of course and the legs are "pants"
2) The arms are placed like some "vest" allowing the left arm to be the workable hand and the right arm hangs from the "invisible cord". (This part is appart form the rest, right?)
3) *SECTION ONE* The belly hangs from some suspenders on top of the puppeteer's shoulders.
4) *SECTION TWO* The "neck" covers the top part of these suspenders and obviously the puppeteers head.
5) *SECTION THREE* And finally the head is attached to the neck.

Like I said, this is all figured out by "eye logic" . I'd appreciate any professional help here.

Thanks everyone!

 

[gfarkwort]

That sounds good for a Big Bird......but Bear is a little diffrent because he has foam forming around his legs....There are mascot sites that you could look at that have behind the scenes and then you can translate that knowledge into Puppets

 

[MUPPETMONKEY]

That sounds good for a Big Bird......but Bear is a little diffrent because he has foam forming around his legs....There are mascot sites that you could look at that have behind the scenes and then you can translate that knowledge into Puppets

Yeah, Bear has a foam forming below and some sort of ring over the puppeteer's shoulder to attach the neck part.
Any help on any site is highly appreciated. I've been looking around for stuff for quite a while and haven't found anthing logical or interesting yet.

 

[gfarkwort]

This guy has some good photos of stuff
http://www.raptorarts.com/

 

[SesameKermie]

For Fursuits/Mascots, try Nicodemus' fursuit pages. RavageFrackle also has some pictures of "Nim-Nim", the Big-Bird counterpart from the Egyptian Sesame Street. Perhaps these will give you some ideas. The link to his site is in his signature.

 

[Whatever]

Big Bird is really half costume, half puppet. Kermit Love always called it a costume, I believe.

 

[MUPPETMONKEY]

Thanks for the help guys. Ravage Frackle's page is pure gold.
Big Bird's feathers are hot-glued individually on the costume. The popular believe is that it takes 4,000 turkey feathers to cover the Bird. However, I did a similar job two years ago and it took 2,000 just to cover the head and neck!
Turkey feathers are rather small so I guess Big Bird's feathers must come from some special large breed of turkey or, well, another kind of bird.

 

[ravagefrackle]

actually , the number is just a rough estimate, im sure that their are many more in him these days, but they are not all hot glued inplace, many are stitch to a kind of ribbon for more security,(hot glue gets soft under hot studio lights), also all of his feathers are sorted out to find only the very best on a strand(something thats gets harder to do every year since factory farming is not very good for producing large healthy feathers,)

any way , best of luck on your project,

 

[MUPPETMONKEY]

actually , the number is just a rough estimate, im sure that their are many more in him these days, but they are not all hot glued inplace, many are stitch to a kind of ribbon for more security,(hot glue gets soft under hot studio lights), also all of his feathers are sorted out to find only the very best on a strand(something thats gets harder to do every year since factory farming is not very good for producing large healthy feathers,)

any way , best of luck on your project,

I figured something like that. In fact, I was about to do it that way. I received a large order of unsorted feathers.....*sigh*... and I have to deal with those.
Thanks for the tips.

 

[Ryan]

Sorry I can't answer your question, but I really like the puppet in your avatar. Do you have any more pictures of your puppets?