For my final piece I decided that I wanted to create the bear from the two brother story that would work well for a stage production. I started by doing some simple designs for the bear based on a similar design to the bear from the stage production of His Dark Materials.
As the Bear needed to be light I decided to make it out of grey board and then coverer it in the camping mat foam so that would be relatively strong, keep the right shape but would still be light enough to hold.
When I started making the bear I intended the mouth to move using a similar mechanism to the one that I made for the parade horse. I tried to use a similar mechanism but by using lighter materials to make the mechanism so that it would not make the head heavy as that would make the puppet harder to hold. The mechanism worked ok but not as well as the one that I made for the parade horse as the materials were not as strong which made the mouth harder to open and close. In the end I decided to keep the mouth closed permanently as once I had covered the head in the foam camping mad it stopped the mouth from closing properly and made it hard for the mouth to open.
I made the head from a simple structure which was made out of grey board I used this materials as it is very light but relatively strong for its weight, the board worked ok at first as it can easily support itself and some added weight but once I started trying to add the foam it made the board weak and bend so I had to reinforce the board so that it didn't break. I then covered the structure with foam from a camping mat, I think that the foam was really useful as it was a really easy material to work with, the only problem being that it is a bit difficult to get curved shapes with it. The foam also left little gapes in the head where I had cut the different sections of the foam. So instead of just painting the foam as you would still be able to see the gaps I bought I throw to use as fur to use on the head and hands, which was more effective than I though it would be as it look quite like fur.
I decided to make the body in a similar way to how the body was made for the production of his dark materials by not actually creating a full body but by creating a structure which implies that there is a body there. I did this by creating a simple wire which consists of two simply made arms which are attached to the head and to some paws that I created and then two long wires that go from the head and are attached to the wearers legs to imply that there is a body. I then glued foam triangle to the wire to give it more of a structure an to look a little like fur. I think that doing this was really effective as it imply that there is a body well and keeps the puppet really light.
I think that the end piece has worked out really well as it is really effective as it looks like a bear and look interesting. The piece is also really light and easy to carry so that it would be easy enough to use on stage. I think that there are still a few problems with it as the wearer has to hold the head up with your hand so that it is hard to hold for a long time it think that it would work better if the head was worn on the head to make it easier to hold and use. I also don't think that the arms work that well as they bent to much when it is been worn I think that I should have only use one wire for the arms rather than four as it would have worked better.
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