I'm currently building two creatures that are full body costume puppets that will fight each other in a music video I'm making. Here are a couple videos of me testing the head/jaws and neck of one of them. I'll post more images as the costumes progress...




For more behind the scenes updates on this project check out my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/historianhimself
and you can see more of my work on my website: http://dontmesswithdinosaurs.com

I look forward to your feedback/critique. Thanks!

I think they are looking great and seem to have great movement and expression. What are you going to use for you lever mechanism to control your jaw and Fin?

Ohhh I like! I notice that the pull lines are on the outside at that moment and pulled by free hand. Are you going to leave it that war or are you going to try and internalize them. Just wondering. I works really great!

I'd planned on keeping the pull lines external for simplicity, but now that you mention it, it might be pretty easy to internalize the jaw line. Either way, it shouldn't be too hard to shoot them so that they and the puppeteer pulling them aren't visible, and anything that still is visible can be removed in post production (which is a nice luxury that one can enjoy when creating creatures for the screen as opposed to a live performance). I'm open to ideas though (that's why I'm here).

Thanks for the feeback and compliments.

The only thought I had about the jaw pull line being eternal, is that it may bet in the way of the action. For example if the other creature delivers a swipe at to this one it may get their claw stuck in the line. The advantage of keeping it exposed though is that if the line where to snap it would be easy to replace quickly. Since you do have the luxury of film and if it does not interfere with action then I say leave it exposed. Hey why make life complicated.

That looks super cool! I don't think I've ever seen fin motion like that done on a costume. I'd come down on the side of internalizing - even partially - the jaw pull line. It will simplify your shoot. But then, I DO like to make things complicated

that's a good point about the monsters clobbering each other in the face. Another nice thing about internalizing is it frees up more angles to shoot from. when light hits fishing line at certain angles it causes it to illuminate and become visible on camera. so yeah, need to figure that out.

Quick update with a full body test.

Wow looking really great! Love the action on the tail when he whips around and hits the guy with it! Yep I think you are going to want to internalize the mouth pull string. Kind of hard to hide.

That is amazing!