Photos and videos explaining how we designed and built the sea turtle puppet for The Life of Pi.
The sculpted puppet prior to painting
The puppet is built around this plywood skeleton which supports the plastazote and houses the fin mechanism
Plastazote is inserted between the plywood shapes and sculpted to provide a base for the shell shapes
The Underbelly is attached to the bottom of the structure
The fins are attached to plastic supports which connect directly to the mechanism
How the puppet was designed and how it works…
Duplicate tail fin copied from the original
The mechanism assembly
Click on the video to see the fin movement…
CREDITS
Puppet Design Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell
Associate Designer Caroline Bowman
Lead Sculpter Oli Simonon
Puppet Makers
Richard Gray
Suzanne Law
Chelsey Lee
Charlie Tymms