Rumpelstiltskin Marionette

1:2 scale Rumpelstiltskin Marionette

Over the past 2-months I’ve had the opportunity to build the most complex marionette of my career so far. This puppet required some special new skills. The time frame of construction required that the costumer had a copy of the puppet body as early as possible. This lead to the decision to design, sculpt, and model the entire puppet digitally, using NomadSculpt and Shapr3D, so the parts could be 3D printed out. Normally my process is very analog, sculpting in wood or clay, then making silicone molds and rotocasting parts. In the past most of my mechanisms have been soldered brass, using cables, elastic and string to control them.

The previous “Most Complicated Marionette I’ve Ever Built”

1:3 scale marionette built for the Showtime Miniseries, Shangri-La, about the music Producer, Rick Rubin.

This new puppet, the folktale villain; Rumpelstiltskin, had to do everything the Rick Ruben puppet needed to do but additionally had to split into two puppets! If you know the story, Rumpelstiltskin becomes SO ANGRY at being foiled, he stamps his foot and tears himself in half!

This marionette is for a stage play, so he had to be able to jump through windows, walk completely around the stage with human actors, fully interact with everyone, and meet his dramatic end without becoming an entangled mess and an embarrassing scene for the performers. That meant that one puppet must become two so that each part may be carried off stage in an intentional way.

That all required packing the body with an enormous number of mechanics which were also easily serviced. The production couldn’t afford my flying across the country every time the puppet had a hiccup. That meant robust design and easy access in case of repairs.

Sculpting in 3D, and designing the mechanisms in CAD, was ideal. It also lead to better prototyping than my traditional methods.