My wife works for Galileo Games, which publishes a space-opera RPG called Bulldogs! They're doing a LARP in July, and asked me to make a puppet of one of the aliens in the game. I chose to make an Urseminite, which is a kind of an ewok with a bad attitude.

Because I can't do things halfway, I decided to make him full-size. So that meant 3 feet of space-bear! I started with the head:


He's got a hole in the back of his neck, where my hand goes. Once I got the head down, the rest of the body came pretty quickly.



I got a friend of mine to rig up some LEDs so that Chubbs cigar lit up, and that there would be a bunch of blinking lights on gun held in his static hand. The LARP was going to end in a Nerf-fight, so Chubb's gun, in addition to lighting up, fires Nerf darts.



Here's a picture of me operating him, for scale:



He's attached to a harness, so I can move him around as much as necessary (the LARP took place in multiple rooms). You can see in this picture that we put his electronics on the harness, to keep Chubbs as light as possible. You can also see the rod I used to control his left hand.



The event was an absolute blast and wickedly successful. We had several people poke their head in just to see Chubbs in action. 



While Chubbs is one of the largest puppet, most detailed puppets I've ever made. I need to make a few tweaks to him before his next appearance, but I am phenomenally happy with him.

Could you explain a bit more extended the way you put the light in the cigarrete?
It's awesome, very good job!

Thanks!

I didn't do the electronics, but here's how I understand it: the cigar is three LEDs hooked up to an Audrino chip that makes them pulse slowly. Pressing a button on the left-arm control rod makes the cigar get really bright, as if Chubbs is taking a puff.

Here's the test video Danny, my electronics wizard, made

He soldered the LEDs to long wires, which travel down the cigar, down Chubb's arm, down the control rod and plug into the battery pack on my belt. The cigar itself is made of craft foam and covered in fabric. If you don't have the electronic wizardry Danny has, I imagine static LEDs would look cool all on their own.

Hope that helps!

Wow!!! LOVE the combination of puppet and electronics

Great Job!

Very cool! I really like the shape of his mouth. Not the typical.   I also happen to love the fact that the battery packs are Altoid boxes. It is amazing what you can do with those once you've emptied them out.

Wow, great puppet. Like the harness to lighten the load. Love the led cigar idea. Those extra little touches add so much.