Ortha

[Tioh]

This is Ortha from the Eurofurence 23 puppet show: “The Skies of Astar” (an almost 3-hour amateur live show with took place in the Estrel Hotel, Berlin, Germany, 19th August 2017). She is a giant 4-legged puppet with foldable wings, that is played by 2-6 puppeteers (depending on what features are used). She can be carried by one puppeteer, put on a rolling rig or be lifted by two ropes. It took almost every weekend from January to July 2017 to build her - with usually 2-4 people working on it. I did most of the work on the head - making a 3d-model, 3d-printing it, building all the Bowden cable animatronics. Ortha is about 2.6meters long, weighs 14.98kg.

Her features include:

• 3d-printed head (PLA) Bowden-cable controlled animatronics (eyelids, ears, mouth, head-tilt front/back)
• foldable wings (each wing has three segments - the feathers of the second segment tilt when the wing closes) with removable rods and magnetic connectors on the body (to keep them in place in the folded position)
• control-rod for the head with 3d-printed levers, grips and battery holder
• blue LED-lights in the eyes (with a switch on the control-rod)
• movable eyelids
• folding ears
• movable lower-jaw
• tiltable head
• flexible neck and tail
• fully articulated front-legs
• movable back legs
• front-paws with inbuilt gloves for the puppeteer
• back-paws with rods
• inbuilt connectors that can be used to hold the weight of the puppet from above or below (14.98 kg)
• a hand sewed fake-fur cover that was painted with UV-paints (4 colors sprayed on, rubbed in with gloves and details drawn with UV-markers)

How Ortha was made (blog-post with many pictures): https://tioh.livejournal.com/131664.html

 

[Tioh]

I released the 3d-models for Orthas head-base: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2518864

The 3d-models are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial license.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

What kind of animal is Ortha?

 

[Tioh]

Orthas species was invented for the story. She's some kind of winged fantasy creature.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Orthas species was invented for the story. She's some kind of winged fantasy creature.

Oh. Okay.

 

[monkeyjb1988]

This is Ortha from the Eurofurence 23 puppet show: “The Skies of Astar” (an almost 3-hour amateur live show with took place in the Estrel Hotel, Berlin, Germany, 19th August 2017). She is a giant 4-legged puppet with foldable wings, that is played by 2-6 puppeteers (depending on what features are used). She can be carried by one puppeteer, put on a rolling rig or be lifted by two ropes. It took almost every weekend from January to July 2017 to build her - with usually 2-4 people working on it. I did most of the work on the head - making a 3d-model, 3d-printing it, building all the Bowden cable animatronics. Ortha is about 2.6meters long, weighs 14.98kg.

Her features include:

• 3d-printed head (PLA) Bowden-cable controlled animatronics (eyelids, ears, mouth, head-tilt front/back)
• foldable wings (each wing has three segments - the feathers of the second segment tilt when the wing closes) with removable rods and magnetic connectors on the body (to keep them in place in the folded position)
• control-rod for the head with 3d-printed levers, grips and battery holder
• blue LED-lights in the eyes (with a switch on the control-rod)
• movable eyelids
• folding ears
• movable lower-jaw
• tiltable head
• flexible neck and tail
• fully articulated front-legs
• movable back legs
• front-paws with inbuilt gloves for the puppeteer
• back-paws with rods
• inbuilt connectors that can be used to hold the weight of the puppet from above or below (14.98 kg)
• a hand sewed fake-fur cover that was painted with UV-paints (4 colors sprayed on, rubbed in with gloves and details drawn with UV-markers)

How Ortha was made (blog-post with many pictures): https://tioh.livejournal.com/131664.html

SO... FREAKIN'... COOL!!!! Great puppets all around

 

[Tioh]

A friend of mine wants to build a smaller version of Ortha (about half scale). I adjusted my 3d-model for hand puppet use (the original head base was made for external cable control). I also made a new 3d-model for the teeth and ears - because I do not have the time to make them by hand. The head base was printed with PLA filament, the teeth and ears were printed with flexible TPU filament. I attached the parts with Blackmorph.

The head has one new feature that the original did not have: the eyes can pan left to right. Eyelids and ears have attachment points for Bowden cables or servo motors. The eyes were 3d-printed with black UV resin. The moveable eyelids were printed with PLA.

 

[Tioh]

I connected the bicycle brake cables for the movable eyelids, and ears - they are controlled by pushing/pulling at the end of a cable.