Building bird puppets

[Kzyoung]

Hi, thid is the first time I'm posting on this forum. I'm new to puppet building and I've been wanting to make a bird puppet. Do you make the skull and add a beak later or do you make the pattern with the beak on it all ready?

 

[Tioh]

I made several bird head-bases for 3d-printing. You can get the 3d-models at http://www.thingiverse.com/Tioh/designs/

 

[Kzyoung]

These are neat, but unfortunately I don't have a 3D printer. I was actually looking for information to make a head similar to Big Bird's, meaning that only the mouth moves. I'm making a peacock so the beak isnt very curved.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Generally, you should design the whole puppet first so the scale and look of both the head and the beak are correct. Typically, for a bird, I would pattern the skull and the two halves of the beak as three separate pieces. The two halves of the beak are attached via the mouth plate and the top of the beak should be attached to the skull. You probably want the bottom of the beak "free floating" (attached to the rest of the puppet's structure only via the mouth plate) so that it can open and close freely, but it really depends on the design.