Hello guys,
It's been a looooong time ago since I last posted on the forum but I've been overwhelmed by many things... Well I guess it's the life of a home father of 3 making puppets.

I've been casted lately as the main character of a modern version of The Imaginary Invalid, inspired by Molière. (If you're interested in reading a french 17th century stageplay in english, you can find it here : http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/9/0/7/9070/9070-8.txt)

The idea is to make quite a realistic puppet (no muppet like) quite the size of a small man. Well, from 1,20m to 1,40m from feet to head. I will manipulate the head from behind and will use my own right hand as his through a hole in the sleeve.
The problem is I never made such a big puppet and I don't know where to find practical informations on the subject.

Has any of you ever made that kind of giant puppet? What advices can you you give me to make it light and comfortable for 2 hours on stage?

We do have one member that has done this before. http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,5060.0.html Perhaps that well give you some ideas.  In the case of this puppet it had two puppeteers but you can do the same thing with one.  Not sure how jlucci did everything on their puppet but a couple general things to remember are that your feet well be inside the feet of the puppet so it can walk and it is best if you find a way to support the weight of the puppet other then from the head. One way of supporting the weight is to have a strap around your neck that runs down to the the body of the puppet somewhere around the shoulders.

Hello Shawn,
I bet with myself that either you or Billy would be the first to post an answer!

What jlucci did is a very good idea indeed! Thank you!
I don't know yet if the solution for my feet inside the feet of the puppet is the right one for my purpose, because the character spends most of his time on a bed.
But as I'm in the very early stage of development I can't predict what it is going to be on rehearsal. He's going to walk for sure. The stage director has not explained all of her ideas yet.

Actually I will be building the same type of puppet as you and I am experimenting with materials I will be full force after Halloween cause I need to build at least 7 of them once i get the concept sorted out.  I can't find much but I will say that I was planning at using an over the shoulder brace and attaching the puppet at me lower stomach area....but Shawn has made me think about the neck upper shoulder support hmmmmm......anyways keep in touch I will let you know what I come up with....I need mine to be very movable like a body would so I need to make sure that is can do a lot of movement....I love challenges....at least at this stage.

Daryl H

Hi Daryl,
I found some ideas to challenge or brainstorm your project (and mine also by the way). Philip Huber published some photos on puppethub of a puppet which had a very good movability:
- http://www.puppethub.com/photo/sem-fronteira-with-unique?context=user
- http://www.puppethub.com/photo/sem-fronteira?context=user

For my imaginary invalid I was thinking about a kind of table top puppet with the head control from behind. Relieving the weight  by a harness is a good idea but I'm not sure if that harness will prevent me from sitting the puppet in bed or make him bent a bit far from me.

I finally took time (or more clearly I stole time on my home father job) to begin my puppet.
I just blogged about it: the imaginary invalid

I found inspiration (and what inspiration) with Woody Allen himself! The modelled head in plastiline is far away from the original yet but that's a good base, I guess.

I like it......................... Great job! on the modeling.

Nice work!  It is coming right along.... keep us informed on your progress.

I'm still layering the head with paper so no news but it's still in progress.
I choose paper maché because I can work on the head, in a corner of the dining room table without risks with my kids playing around.
I used a white wallpaper glue which I do not have to secure in the fridge. I would have loved to try the wheat paste Matthieu René described on his blog :
http://creaturistelab.blogspot.com/2010/08/creaturiste-paper-mache-methods.html
but the waterproofing method he used:
http://creaturistelab.blogspot.com/2010/09/wheat-paste-is-solved.html
is not children friendly.

The realistic human look is a choice but I'm wondering if I should had done bigger facial details.

the head is looking great, i always think that i should have done the features more exaggerated too, i made a 'ventriloquist mask' and it literally took me 5-6 attempts to come up with something that i was happy with and didn't want to change, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and that isn't always a good thing, so you could always build up the features on top of this head if you are not happy however, we all think it looks fantastic.
i cant wait to see the next picture and to see your progress
Ben.