Making a Large Tree Puppet

[Jose Antonio]

Hi Folks,

New to the site, so forgive me if I'm asking a repetitive question, I did a search on large puppets and nothing I read was helpful...

Although I have a background in design and I've built various theater props and sets I've never, ever created a puppet. I've made some preliminary drawings and notes as to how I think I could proceed but not go into a long explanation about it here, I'll make it brief

I wrote a children's play many moons ago in which the main character is a tree; it walks and talks and I would like to be as true to that as possible.

First off, if there's a book or video on how to create large puppets I would appreciate a link to it/them, however; if The Foam Book goes into explaining this then I'll wait till I receive it in the mail.

I guess my biggest concern is what material to use to keep the integrity of the tree's non-animated branches, the ones above the puppeteer's head, while keeping the overall weight of the puppet down to a minimum. I'm toying with the idea of using a shoulder harness, secured at the waist for stability, from which I would attach the said "material" to; the tree's overall height would be around 10'.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Peace.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

The Foam Book doesn't cover giant puppets.

Not sure how a shoulder harness would work, but the best way to do something this big is probably to use a metal frame back pack.

For a 10'0 tall puppet you're going to need to use extremely lightweight materials. I would build the central "core" of the tree around an aluminum tube that can be bolted to the backpack frame. Bamboo can be used to make the rest of the "skeleton" for the tree's branches.

For the outside of the tree I'd ideally use papier mâché, for the rigid portions of the tree, and 1/4" L200 foam or 1/2" polyfoam for the flexible, moving parts. Papier mâché is very time intensive, but relatively cheap and will be the lightest and strongest material to work with (you just need a lot of layers). It can also produce a very realistic look if it's sculpted and painted properly. The "soft" foam portions of the puppet and "hard" papier mâché portions could be blended by using flexible expanding foam, which is sold in spray cans for use as household insulation (make sure the foam is flexible, not rigid when it dries).

The Stan Winston School has several in-depth tutorials on foam fabrication and some of those techniques could probably help you:

https://www.stanwinstonschool.com

I'd also have a look at some of the cheap, low-tech techniques used by companies like Bread and Puppet to make giant puppets. A good source for basic information is the Puppeteers Co-Operative homepage:

http://puppetco-op.org

I also have a Pinterest Board with a lot of giant puppets that might provide some inspiration:

http://www.pinterest.com/puppetvision/giant-puppets/

Another way to go - if you can afford it - is to not build it yourself. Axtell Expressions makes a great giant talking tree that can even be animatronic and operated remotely. I believe they are made-to-order so if you contact Steve Axtell he could probably discuss options for customizing it for your show.

http://www.axtell.com/trees.html

I hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I forgot to mention earlier that there was a thread about making a large tree (more of a stage rather than a puppet) a few years ago:

http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/making-a-large-tree-puppet.56584/

For some reason, the forum's search is awful and doesn't seem to properly index old threads beyond a certain date. A good way to search the entire forum is to go to Google and type this:

site:muppetcentral.com <INSERT SEARCH TERM HERE>

 

[Jose Antonio]

Buck-Beaver,

Thank you for your reply, your information/advise is much appreciated. And yes, I've found that searching, any forum, can sometimes be quite the challenge so thanks for the helpful tip on searching the Muppet Central Forums.

Metal Frame Back-Pack was my thinking as well and I found one online for $21. I did find the Axtell animatronics tree on a Google search, which is how I found Muppet Central, but not only is it way out of my budget it's also stationary and I need my tree to move and groove; cool tree though.

I did think of "Papier mâché" but I'm leaning more towards foam due to its flexibility and if I can cover it with some light canvas or fabric I'll be able to paint it and give it a tree look and by using your "flexible expanding foam" suggestion I can add some 3D texture. I found I can get a FBY (foam by the yard) 1/4" X 55" X 50' for $75 (the 1/2" is $150), plenty of foam for any mistakes along my learning curve ... I hope.

Once I get started, which wont be for a couple of months yet, I'll share my progress, the good along with the not so good, on the forum.

Thanks again for your help.

Peace,

 

[Rymoore21]

1/4" will probably be too thin. The 1/2" foam is the thinnest I use.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

1/4" will probably be too thin. The 1/2" foam is the thinnest I use.

Normally I would agree, but for what Jose is doing 1/4" is actually ideal for covering a basic structure, especially because of weight considerations. A lot of builders will build a basic structure using L200 foam (or something similar) and then cover it with 1/4" foam to get more shapes or detail. I've done this for giant puppets and that approach worked really well.

Also re: 1/4" foam, even better is if you can get 1/4" foam that has a fabric backing, which is common for foam manufactured for automotive upholstery purposes.

I would not use canvas or any fabric on a giant puppet mounted to a frame backpack. Unless you can find something extremely lightweight it will just be too heavy. Even a lot of flexible expanding foam will weight the puppet down - every ounce counts with a puppet like this!

 

[Jose Antonio]

1/4" will probably be too thin. The 1/2" foam is the thinnest I use.

Rymoore21,
Thanks for your input. I'm currently working with the 1/4" in mind due to its price appeal and weight but since I'm still in the "How the heck do I do this" stage I haven't dismissed any possibilities, yet.

Buck-Beaver,
Thanks for your input as well. I've started out, using hanger wire, to build a small model of what I want the Backpack/Harness to look like, I'll post a picture of it when I'm done.

Peace,