Working arms for a very large puppet

[Macavite]

I saw you at Dragoncon, and I thought your Totoro looked wonderful. (If you saw a woman with a purple Fraggle, that was me.)

Making the arms movable wound be nice, but would you be able to see what they were doing? I'm guessing that the teeth are a scrim so you can see forward. The hands are on the sides, and it doesn't look like they could ever come into your field of vision. Not saying you shouldn't try to make his arms work, but if it was mine I wouldn't, as I can't see how I'd use 'em.

Whatever you do, I hope you'll post here and show us!

I believe I remember you as well, I caught some video:

at 48 seconds and at 2 minutes and 28 seconds

Your fraggle was awesome!

. . . and you're right, I cannot see my arms, and don't see a way where I'd be able to. The main thing I was hoping to do was to be able to wave and I think I could learn how to do that blind. Ideally I'd be able to huge people but I'm not sure that'd be realistic because, as you pointed out, I can't see what I'm doing, and some folks are a little aggressive with the Totoro, and I'd be worried about breaking whatever mechanisms are in there.

However, the one thing I could do was wiggle my ears and people went crazy when I did that. I imagine being able to actually wave would be that much better.

 

[Slackbot]

Oh, wow! I didn't know about that video. Thanks for posting the link. I'll have to send it to my friend Kathy, who built and performed Janken's little sister Poncle (Janken being the purple Fraggle and Poncle the brown one) with me. She's visible in the 0:48 clip with Reporter Kermit.

Re the arms, you culd hug people from the side, but it doesn't seem like they could get someone in front of you, at least not without a lot of effort. (I'm picturing the person inside the costume and the angle you'd have to move poles sticking into the interior.) Waving sounds like a good idea; you'd just have to be careful not to swat people standing close by. Swinging the arm outward is risky, especially in crowded hotels, but bringing it forward where you can see it ought to be safe.

Will you be bringing Totoro to D*C 2013? I plan to bring Janken, Skeeter, and maybe other puppets if I feel showoffy. I'd love for Jan to meet your Totoro. I wouldn't mind it either.

 

[Macavite]

Yeah, that's my personal video, so not exactly as well publicized as some of them out there.

In terms of hugging people, very few people came at me from the front. Most* wanted side-hugs and/or pictures with Totoro's arm over their shoulder. Thankfully I have a very attentive group of handlers, who were making sure I didn't get mauled** and were coordinating pictures. I think even a little bit of structure in the arms might help with the hugging, as it was people needed to either get very low or hang on to Totoro's arm to get it to stay on their shoulder.

Yeah, with waving I'd need to be aware of the crowd to the side, which is a weak point. Perhaps I could get a camera mounted under the leaf pointed that way? Probably easier just to coordinate with the handlers about when it was safe. They seemed quite good about calling out when they needed Totoro to do something. "Totoro, give us a wave!"

Yes, we'll be back at DC2013. A lot of this planning is specifically about trying to be ready for that

* somewhere between 500-1000 . . . needless to say we lost count.
** except one very drunk Starbuck who tackled me at the Hilton. I'm glad the costume is very durable.

 

[Sidebottom]

Not to derail the thread, but what exactly is the internal structure made of? Also, how is the internal structure attached to the backpack? I assume the weight is carried by the backpack (not on your head, which is what it kind of looks like).

More on topic, the oar idea sounds like a good one to me. You could put a bend in the rod so that it's easier to manipulate from inside. And if the other end attached specifically to Totoro's hand, you could make the wrist rotate just by rotating the rod.

 

[Slackbot]

One thing has occurred to me: how heavy are the arms, and how sturdy is the internal structure? Would moving the arm put enough weight on the structure to bend it or cause it to want to tip sideways? I'd do some testing that way, just running some PVC through the arm and moving it around, to see what happens with the rest of the costume before doing serious rework on the arms.

 

[Macavite]

Not to derail the thread, but what exactly is the internal structure made of? Also, how is the internal structure attached to the backpack? I assume the weight is carried by the backpack (not on your head, which is what it kind of looks like).

I don't think that's at all off-topic. Any build I do for the arms has to be supported by the body. In the build diary above, the first picture gives a pretty good picture of the internal structure. There's a laundry basket above my head. It's carried by a backpack frame I'm wearing. Anything of significant weight (like these arms) needs to be carried off that laundry basket. Hanging off the basket we have the twill-tape frame for the hooping. Once that is all together, we put the skin over top of the laundry basket 'skull' and hoop skirt 'skeleton'.

More on topic, the oar idea sounds like a good one to me. You could put a bend in the rod so that it's easier to manipulate from inside. And if the other end attached specifically to Totoro's hand, you could make the wrist rotate just by rotating the rod.

That's what I'm thinking of. Our first try looked terrible, but I think that was likely due to the lackluster implementation and not the idea itself. I'd love to make the bend in the rod become a working elbow that I could flex, but one thing at a time.

 

[Macavite]

One thing has occurred to me: how heavy are the arms, and how sturdy is the internal structure? Would moving the arm put enough weight on the structure to bend it or cause it to want to tip sideways?

Yeah, I've thought about this. I fully trust that the weight of anything attached to the arms will do bad things to the body. It's just a hoop skirt, it's not meant to support weight. However, I do have a backpack and a skull that can support a decent amount of weight (as much as I'm willing to carry).

My thought was to suspend any arm-workings off the skull, and to have sort sort of a 'spacer' rod or two either between the arms, or between me and the arms, to keep them 'out'. This spacer would need to be disconnectable, so I can fit through doorways. One advantage of the current completely hoop skirt body is that it can squish down in any direction Working arms would start moving Totoro towards 'fragile'

One of many things to work through, but I have some ideas on this one.

 

[Sidebottom]

Thanks for the info about the body frame. What are the details of the backpack/laundry basket attachment?

It occurs to me that an internal arm rod wouldn't necessarily have to be supported by the body. Imagine a hollow arm, with a rod inside it that only attaches to the puppet's hand. The rod could poke through one of the many holes in the body frame, and you could just be holding the other end all the time.

And, as I mentioned above, you could put a bend in the part of the rod that's inside the body frame if you needed the part that you grip to be in a more accessible/comfortable position for you to hold on to for an extended period of time.

 

[Macavite]

Thanks for the info about the body frame. What are the details of the backpack/laundry basket attachment?

So it's a frame backpack, minus the backpack. Padded straps across my waist and shoulders, connected up to an aluminum frame in the back. The frame is zip tied to a PVC pipe extension frame to get the laundry basket up where it needs to be. The PVC pipes are basically a pair of connected upside down "L"'s. Then the basket rests upside down on the pipes (and is zip-tied in place).

Attached to the outside of the basket is a bunch of foam padding. The twill-tape hoop frame then hangs off the basket. In terms of the costume the bottom of the basket is right below the eyes and above the mouth.

It occurs to me that an internal arm rod wouldn't necessarily have to be supported by the body. Imagine a hollow arm, with a rod inside it that only attaches to the puppet's hand. The rod could poke through one of the many holes in the body frame, and you could just be holding the other end all the time.

And, as I mentioned above, you could put a bend in the part of the rod that's inside the body frame if you needed the part that you grip to be in a more accessible/comfortable position for you to hold on to for an extended period of time.

I like the idea of the bend, there is a lot of room inside the body to play with. But I'm not fond of the idea of needing to hold the arms up for hours at a time. I need to have some sort of way to rest them, without the weight of the arms pushing in on the hoop-skirt body. Heck we were worried about them as they are distorting the body when we first put them on

 

[electrickmayhem]

Your post made me want to show off this guy:

http://imgur.com/a/8vXeL#0