I hope you can see to walk or have a "handler" to hold onto, those big feet look dangerous. Be safe.

I will have vision, though it will be limited.  But my wife will be taking on the handler role.  Her leading me by hand will also help sell the "toddler" role I will take.  Will be using a sheer white material as the eyes, with a store bought "lone ranger" type mask. 

Hmm.... not sure if foamcore would hold up or not.  Depends on how thick you use. Would need to be thicker then the typical 1/4 inch I think. You do need a good solid base for bike cables. Maybe build on top of a bike helmet so you could attach to it then come down the sleeve. That may be too far away though from the lower jaw connection. I wonder though if you could approach from the other direction. Attach to the front of the helmet and then run the inner cable through the upper roof of the top beak down to the bottom beak. You push to open the bottom beak then release to close. A hand break has the spring in it to return to the "pushed" position so you might have to hold the handle closed then release to open the mouth.  At least I think that is how it would work. Been so long since I looked at a bike cable set up.

I wonder if we are over thinking all this. There has to be a simpler way.

Ok was over at FB on the Puppet Maker's Workshop page and Anne Newman was asking about moving eyes in a hand in mouth puppet and what the correct base would be.  While this is a bit different there was one video link posted that I thought might inspire some.



He used metal strips to create a skull to attach to. Also if you have a FB account then you can check out the Puppet Maker's Workshop group and then look for a post by Anne. https://www.facebook.com/groups/50583854212/  Right now it is only a few down but it could get pushed further with time.

I have the habit of over thinking :D  Was looking at the mouthplate setups in The Foam Book, and am thinking that I might be able to use pvc pipe for the thumb holder tube thing.  Then attach the bike cable through it, as if my thumb was actually manipulating the beak.  

Could work.... keep us updated!

It is in progress, have about 2 weeks to finish it.




Ended up scavenging the Green Lantern muppet head (enlarged Roly Poly) and gluing the beak into the existing mouthplate.  Will be cutting into the skull for the masked eyes, right above the beak.  Going to be dropping some additional fabric on the body, because I am thinking a younger bird would have less leg.  Will be using foam to round out the body a bit more as well.  Still debating on whether I can get the mouth to move.  I don't have much room in that head, as the foam and cardboard is practically touching my face.  So I will be doing some additional cutting.  Not to mention, the beak will double as an air vent.  The unevenness will be fixed when feathering. 

Not turning out the way I wanted, but it is a learning process and only 2nd full body that I have attempted.

Coming along nicely.  I would go ahead and finish it off without mouth movement then if you have time go back and see if you can get it rigged to move the mouth. I recently worked on a tour show of a children's show that is on PBS (surely you can figure that one out) and they all where rigged with cable control for the mouth that went down the right arm to the hand. Gloves for the hands are big enough that you don't notice that the hand is inside it operating the cable. You could do a really quick and dirty cable rig that went up into the top beak and then pulled a string that came out of the upper mouth plate down to the lower mouth plate to pull it up and closed. If you do a cable try and get it inside the head so it come out the back and down the sleeve.

looks great cant wait to see it completed.  Shawn I always wondered how they go their mouths to move in those live shows. There is a show at the Disney parks that has moving mouths but you can clearly see the performers moving a trigger, they could learn a trick or two

Finding Nemo was clearly visible...but it worked in the context.  At first I thought it was odd that you saw their heads and the actors talking while they worked the fish mouths, but I got into it.  Having the trigger in the gloved hand is genious, and explains a lot of the shows.  Will toy with that option today.  At worst, I have to cut some elastic.