• Upscaled marionette

• articulated fingers and body

• foam sculpting

2010

This upscaled marionette was created for halloween while I was in high school. It was a very quick project, being completed in only one month. Although after this year, it was the only puppet i’ve ever had an urge to return to. Thankfully I was able to do just that when my city needed characters to visit the local “Breakfast with Santa” event. Both versions were essentially the same design, with updates and better techniques used later on. The entire puppet stood eight and a half feet tall and was supported on a repurposed drum harness from the scrap pile of the schools marching band. From that, wooden dowels and a tension line space the body of jack away from the performer for visibility. The torso of jack is a formed piece of EVA foam, a high density foam similar to a yoga mat, with wooden dowel segments for each section of the arms (in the second iteration, all the wooden dowels were replaced with PVC pipes). The hinges were made from double layered duct tape for the freedom of motion.

Jacks head was carved from an orb of styrofoam. The first iteration was fairly round and just resembled Jacks face. The second iteration was sculpted from a larger orb of foam and was able to hold the more accurate overall shape of Jack Skellington’s head. The second iteration of the head was also covered in paper mâché which, with hindsight, wasn’t the best choice but successful all the same. Both iterations were covered in fabric accordingly to resemble the costumes portrayed in the film.

The first iteration of jack in 2010 had articulated fingers that functioned through a system of cables. These cables ran from the skeleton fingers, down the arm section to the puppet handles onto the performers fingers. They were very touchy and didn’t always work, but still a cool effect.

Even now, almost ten years since the first attempt of this character, I would still like to re-revisit Jack skellington one day to really polish it off. I was also happy to make a small Zero with an LED nose to accompany the second iteration of Jack. Below are a few pictures from the build of these puppets and a video showing a few of the walking tests of the puppet through the stages. Please, enjoy.

- Zach