I thought I'd share my latest project.  I had good intentions of posting the whole progress and just like when you have your first child you take a lot of pictures, but when the sleepless hours and hourly feedings take over the photos get forgotten.  I really did think I had taken more photos. 

Background:  Stretch is about 3 ft long with a slinking inside his middle, so he will stretch almost up to 5.5 ft.  He is blacklight and will be operated by at least 4 puppeteers who will operater him from above.  Alot of his controls are marionette style.  The controls for his head were the most challenging.  His mouth opens, tongue wags, eyes close and ears flap/wiggle.

The first photos show the process of build the moving mouth levers and tongue control. 

I attached a 25lb fishing line to the lower jaw, ran the line through a tube attached to the back of the jaw to keep the line from rubbing against the hinge.  Eventually the line ran up the 36" dowel secured with eyelet screws then attach to large D rings.  The elastic a the jaw pulls the mouth back to a semi open position to allow for room for the tongue.

The tongue : a party horn covered in spandex (the kind that unrolls when you blow into it), clear vinyl tubing (not shown) and a compression bulb like your mother used on your stuffy little nose. LOL  I ran the tubing up through the roof of the mouth and up the dowel as with the fishing line, securing it with larger eyelet screws.  At the top I secured it with elastic, so that it would inflate after being compressed.  Short, quick compressions with small pauses inbetween makes the tongue fully extend while rapid compressions gives the impression he is panting. 

The eyes a based on the blinking eye toutorial, but I used a rubber band secured to the mouth plate to pull the lids back open as well as a rubber band secrued to the dowel running through the head to hold the eyes level.  A fishing line again runs through the top of the head up the dowel with a D ring at the end. 

The opening on the head.  I used a section of 2" pvc to thread the dowel, fishing lines and tubing through the foam.

Here are the contols at the top of the dowel for Stretch's head.

The bar at the back is attached to the ears and can be removed to all for more range of movement for them.

I'm sorry there aren't more steps shown, but if you have any questions please, please ask.  I'd love to help.

Here he is!  The photos don't do him justice.  You can't tell from the photos, but his stomach comes apart. There is a fabric covered slinky that will stretch another 2.5-3'.  I didn't have enough people at my house to take a photo of him standing, so once my customer sends photos I'll attach more.

Julie

can you upload a video I would love to see him in action its an intresting design.

Unfortunatly I cannot video him at this time.  I'll see if my customer can video him and send it to me then I'll try to post it here or on youtube.

Julie

Any ideas how they plan to use this puppet?

That is pretty cool!!  I too would love to see it in action if possible!

Very neat set up.......as Jay said I would love to see it in action......thanks for providing some pictures which gives us great inspiration.

Daryl H

They will be using him as part of their VBS program this June.  Their story will start out in bedroom of a little boy (small Hubie Tubie www.playsoup.com).  Father Hubie Tubie will be telling the little boy a story about God's goodness to us and the room will transform into a tropical island setting with a volcano etc.  At some point during the program the dog becomes a gift to the little boy.  The dog will enter through the audience, walk up a ramp in an out doors so the stretch effect will look as if part of his body in coming out one door while the back end is still entering another door.  I'm not sure of all the details, but it sounds great!!!

Julie

Julie,
Give us an update on Stretch if you can. We would love to see him in action.

Sue