Elephant nose problem

[biblebetty]

Hi everyone,
got a problem, I have a show coming up and looking for a good elephant pattern but im concerned about the nose. I'm making a nose for my elephant but I need it to be flexable. i'm doing a Noah's Ark song and in the song I want my elephant to play his nose like a trumpet. But what do I use to keep the nose flexable. If I stuff the nose it will be hard and i need to raise it and lower it so it looks natural. Got any ideas?

 

[Blink]

Hi everyone,
got a problem, I have a show coming up and looking for a good elephant pattern but im concerned about the nose. I'm making a nose for my elephant but I need it to be flexable. i'm doing a Noah's Ark song and in the song I want my elephant to play his nose like a trumpet. But what do I use to keep the nose flexable. If I stuff the nose it will be hard and i need to raise it and lower it so it looks natural. Got any ideas?

I am going to use an odd candy analogy to describe how to build it. Imagine a stack of lifesavers (say ten) and now imagine piece of shoelace licorice running through the middle but attatched to the inside of each lifesaver snuggly. Stagger the lifesavers so that it is lifesaver, space, lifesaver, space. You will have a flexible tube shape. Now that is the basic idea.

Make foam lifesavers and use a string of some sort and attach it to the middle. Cover with a tube of fabric and viola!

I hope that makes sense.

 

[staceyrebecca]

may I suggest a plastic slinky?

 

[scarylarrywolf]

I've always thought that if I were to build an elephant puppet I would try using washing machine/vacuum cleaner hose for the trunk. I think you can find it at Home Depot...?

 

[Buck-Beaver]

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you'll see a diagram of a tail/trunk/tentacle mech that's very similar to what Blink described. I've often thought that a pool noodle would work well too, but it really depends on the design and what the puppet needs to do.

 

[biblebetty]

think of the song "raindrops keep falling on my head". but the words have been changed to "raindrops keep falling on my boat. it a boat with Noah and animals. In the middle of the song there is a trumpet solo. that's when the elephant would come out and play his trunk. I need his trunk to be flexable to go up and down.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Does it have to move on it's own, or just be flexible so that the elephant can "play" it?

 

[biblebetty]

just be flexable so he can play it. I want it to hand loose, most elephant nose are posed. I want my elephant to raise his trunk and look like he's playing it.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Then you should probably go with the method Blink described. That will work very well.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

think of the song "raindrops keep falling on my head". but the words have been changed to "raindrops keep falling on my boat. it a boat with Noah and animals. In the middle of the song there is a trumpet solo. that's when the elephant would come out and play his trunk. I need his trunk to be flexable to go up and down.

Sounds cute.