We began designing by sculpting the character faces and body shapes from clay, covered them in tape and cut them along the contours to create a pattern that could scaled up. these could then be reassembled to make the life size puppet. We used this method for the acrobat’ heads, the geeks and the carousel animals.
At the same time we began to plan how to make the largest puppet in the show, the geek. By using a bamboo frame, joined with bolts and bonded with latex, we created a structure that could be built off of. The body shape was made by melting and bending yellow electrical tubing and bulking out by weaving ‘withies’ or willow. Then the body shape was built up enough it was covered in bubble wrap and parcel type. We also learnt some basic puppet joints and mechanics that we used in the geeks elbows and knees. Plus I experienced with make a jointed acrobats torso. The hip and shoulder joints where leather, which enable the same type of movement a ball and socket joint has.
We then began to render and the clothed the geek, sewing his skin and tailoring his tail coat. We painted into the skin and built out features using foam.
Isabelle Wilkes 