3/10/2018 - TWO LEGGED MARIONETTES

With a view to getting into simple puppet formation, I purchased a simple 'Baby Bird Marionette' to study its workings and generally get a working idea of how to create one myself.


This was particularly useful as the crossbar to which the strings ran was detatchable, which I supposed would help in the creation of my own as it would allow me to string them to the sturdy controls initially instead of creating the whole thing from scratch. The bird was comprised entirely of flexible materials, which allowed it to bend and twist naturally as the strings were pulled, however I knew already I wanted my marionette to be more subtantial.

Working with this two legged format, I considered other beings I could create. I wanted to diversify from the bird example I had aquired and do something a little different.

The immediate thing that popped into my head was the bipedal and instantly characteristic forms of dinosaurs. A childhood fascination with dinosaurs gave me relative confidence in my ability to reproduce their forms well enough, and the creation of practice puppets gave me the conceptual freedom to indulge in some fun creatures which sparked my imagination. There are definitely also some comparisons which could be pulled from playing with dinosaur puppets and mankind 'playing with forces of extinction' so to speak.

I chose the Parasaurolophus as the subject of my first experiment due to its upright form and recognisable characteristics. It also featured a relatively rigid, compact frame with only the two legs and the majorly dynamic elements.

My plan was to use modelling clay, foil, string and wooden skewers as well as a collection of home tools to create some very editable prototypes allowing me to get some initial hands on experience with achieving the desired effect. By using these materials I could remodel or scrap and recreate entire parts as I worked and make changes quickly and with minimum detriment to the rest of the piece. Initially I was very dubious as to whether this would work at all, but wanted to give it a shot and see what I could create and learn in the process of making.

I wanted this first one to be incredibly simple, as I was convinced it wouldn't work properly initially, but the shape of the Parasaurolophus was still very easy to recognise. I decided to go overboard on strings for this first prototype to increase stability and focus my attention on the workings of the legs. By using bunched up foil inside the main areas I decreased the weight of the body of the puppet, and was easily able to increase bulk. When I had my head and body finished, I strung these parts and up on a central pole.

I thought that the best way to ensure my puppet would move realistically would be to ensure it was anatomically jointed in the same ways as the original creature would've been. To explore this I created a hip joint by boring a hole through the centre of the body with a plan to thread string through as a makeshift pelvis. I had episodes of 'Walking With Dinosaurs' and suchlike playing throughout the making process, and was pulling up short compilations to get a proper visual representation of how they would've moved. This helped me when stringing the legs as it allowed me to see that during walking the legs were pulled forwards and upwards at the knee joint, and were operated from the hip slightly higher up the body.

This extra considation proved to be of the upmost importance as it really helped the effectiveness of the puppet. As soon as the piece was fully strung and lifted away from the ground, it took on a vitality of it's own. As a first maquette, I thought this actually came off brillliantly and, despite being crude and simple, was still effective enough to get me excited to make more. At this stage the walking motion was clunky and lacked the weight for decisive, powerful movements, however as a first attempt I was very pleased with my efforts.  Now that I knew the two legged design worked I wanted to try a larger version which would allow for greater detail and focus on the technicalities of production.

I thought a T Rex would be a suitable upgrade in both size and impression, however this time wanted to pay closer attention to aesthetics, experimenting with leaving areas of exposed foil to suggest teeth and markings. The first design had also had a simple string neck, whereas here I decided to add an extra piece of plastecine to simulate the thicker, muscular neck of the tyrannosaurus. I also added the tail on a joint of it's own to allow more comprehensive and fluid movement along the central body, before stringing this area to a crossbar of my own making which was double the size of the example yellow bird I was taking technical inspiration from. Once again the work took a life of it's own as soon as it became suspended on strings, however it already had a much more physical quality than the Parasaurolophus, even with two legs missing!

 I used very much the same leg operation in this second puppet as the first, however increased the size of both components to mimic the more heavily developed muscle structure of the apex predator. Because of this, animating the leg required more space and longer joints to allow free and easy movement. In addition to this, the larger puppet weighed a great deal more than my first attempt, and I had to be cleverer at anchoring the strings through the main body foil to minimise pressure on the plastecine where possible, to prevent the strings from pulling through the moldable material. These were all small features I was learning as I worked through trial and error, and helped me really develop my thinking in terms of the material capablities.

The operation of this puppet was much more comprehensive due to the larger number of jointed areas along the T Rex body which gave it's movements much more flow and realism. However it also required some increased control to pull off effectively. Because of the size and muscle mass of larger predators, their movements became more lumbering beneath the increased effect of gravity, and the level of balance required in moving a bipedal beast of that weight. I felt like I was starting to get the movements right, but the lower legs were flopping around a bit on contact with the ground. This was ruining the effect of the walking pattern as it made the piece appear visibly light, which made it less convincing. I knew I could counteract this by adding weights to the bottoms of the feet, but didn't have anything compact and small enough to fit in the feet aswell as having enough weight to effect the leg as much as needed, so I would have to go out and find something which would work. However for a first couple of attempts I was really impressed with what I had achieved. As a next step I wanted to also create a four legged version from what I had learned, although I knew it would be a crude creation at first, I thought this was the next practical step.

Even now though I was immensely excited to start on this new thread of development. The pieces I had created took on an entire life of their own, in a way I had not expected. Both outside and within my control, as no matter the skill with which I could wield them, it was the natural swing and flow of their suspension which gave them life. They also both immediately began to develop characters of their own, especially the T Rex due to it's more fully formed appearence, leading me to quickly name him Trevor. I feel like these early experiments had reinvigorated my practice in an exciting and unexpected direction and I am looking forward to exploring further!