Elmo Build

[dhowellowl]

I have been meaning to post this for a few months now. (I started other builds but I had wrote this up at the time, but never posted. I will eventually post my other builds as well. I would like to keep this forum alive as it can be very helpful when building):

Its my first build so be easy on me. I have a 17 month old daughter now that has grown a love for Elmo. With her watching Sesame Street so much now, I stumbled across Kevin Clash's documentary on being Elmo. Watching that really took me back to my childhood days and fascination with the mechanics of puppets. As a child I always wanted a puppet. My mom did her best and making me one but that definitely had some flaws. I ended up going down a rabbit hole of how professional puppets are made and probably watched 100's of videos before deciding to give this a shot. I'd say he turned out pretty decent for the fact I had literally zero experience with hand sewing or machine sewing. I really took my time unlike other projects of mine and planned out my course of action as I attempted to build a replica. I normally don't post anything on the internet, so I wanted to share in case anyone else ever thought about attempting an Elmo. I have found that there isn't that much information out there for building replicas. So with that ask me anything, and I will do my best to share with you how I built this little guy. Thanks!

 

[jollyerranchers]

This is incredible! If you’re open to it, I’d love to commission you <<3

 

[Stephen28]

That’s awesome, been doing lots of research, just need to build, a few people said they started with the monsto puppet,
But I don’t want it looking like that, what sort of tweeks did you make, and the eyes size please
Or would you recommend drawing up an exact 24inch paper replica
Sorry for lots of questions and much appreciated in advance

 

[dhowellowl]

That’s awesome, been doing lots of research, just need to build, a few people said they started with the monsto puppet,
But I don’t want it looking like that, what sort of tweeks did you make, and the eyes size please
Or would you recommend drawing up an exact 24inch paper replica
Sorry for lots of questions and much appreciated in advance

I used the Mostro pattern from project puppet for this Elmo. I really recommend it as it is a very high quality pattern and includes nice instructions. I still continue to use pieces from it on other builds, so it's definitely worth it. It really helps to understand the basics of professional puppet construction. I didn't tweak that much of the pattern for this posted Elmo. I slimmed up his arms as Elmo has pretty skinny arms and the pattern has bigger arms. There wasn't much complications with that, it was basically just sewing in quite a bit from the original line I traced from the pattern. I just eye balled it on what I thought was skinny enough. The other thing I altered was the foam body as well as slimming up the belly area on the sewing side. I did this all after I put him together. The Mostro body pattern is just a little too round and pudgy for Elmo in my opinion. I just redrew the foam body pattern making it less round and more tall and slender, and then once I stuck that in I just slimmed down the fabric to match it by sewing a new seam line on the back to tighten it up. This was all just me being picky. You can stick to the pattern 100% and have a great looking Elmo. I also made and included the optional sleeve pattern this template comes with, however, I let it hang out at all times as it makes the body/torso appear a little longer. The body in the pattern is a little short to my eyes.

I will say what made my Elmo "come alive" was the time I spent on the fur as well as the fur I got. Boiling it and then taking your time trimming it once he's put together makes all the difference in the world. With fur you can make areas appear larger or smaller based on the length you trimmed the fur. I have seen many builds online where they spent all this time building Elmo, but they didn't take the time to trim the fur and make him look that much better.

To answer your question about Eyes, these are 2inch (50mm). I used wood ball knobs. Specifically these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09JN2QK66/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
All you have to do is paint them, no sanding was required. It also makes it easy to attatch as you can just run a screw in them. I made a little plastic plate to go on the inside for the screws to go in. It acted as a washer as the foam wouldn't be strong enough to have resistance for the screw.

Hope this helps and good luck on the build!

 

[Stephen28]

I used the Mostro pattern from project puppet for this Elmo. I really recommend it as it is a very high quality pattern and includes nice instructions. I still continue to use pieces from it on other builds, so it's definitely worth it. It really helps to understand the basics of professional puppet construction. I didn't tweak that much of the pattern for this posted Elmo. I slimmed up his arms as Elmo has pretty skinny arms and the pattern has bigger arms. There wasn't much complications with that, it was basically just sewing in quite a bit from the original line I traced from the pattern. I just eye balled it on what I thought was skinny enough. The other thing I altered was the foam body as well as slimming up the belly area on the sewing side. I did this all after I put him together. The Mostro body pattern is just a little too round and pudgy for Elmo in my opinion. I just redrew the foam body pattern making it less round and more tall and slender, and then once I stuck that in I just slimmed down the fabric to match it by sewing a new seam line on the back to tighten it up. This was all just me being picky. You can stick to the pattern 100% and have a great looking Elmo. I also made and included the optional sleeve pattern this template comes with, however, I let it hang out at all times as it makes the body/torso appear a little longer. The body in the pattern is a little short to my eyes.

I will say what made my Elmo "come alive" was the time I spent on the fur as well as the fur I got. Boiling it and then taking your time trimming it once he's put together makes all the difference in the world. With fur you can make areas appear larger or smaller based on the length you trimmed the fur. I have seen many builds online where they spent all this time building Elmo, but they didn't take the time to trim the fur and make him look that much better.

To answer your question about Eyes, these are 2inch (50mm). I used wood ball knobs. Specifically these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09JN2QK66/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
All you have to do is paint them, no sanding was required. It also makes it easy to attatch as you can just run a screw in them. I made a little plastic plate to go on the inside for the screws to go in. It acted as a washer as the foam wouldn't be strong enough to have resistance for the screw.

Hope this helps and good luck on the build!

Much appreciated
That has helped a great deal, and again awesome build

 

[dhowellowl]

For more info: https://www.puppetstitches.com/elmo-build/