Yip Yip Costume

Step 6: Creating the jaw

With the dimensions of the sponge I bought, I cut it in half length-wise to make it thinner (easier to handle). Mark an area a few inches past the lower edge of the mouth, and tape the curved face of the sponge onto the inside surface at that location. This is where all the movement will take place. Try moving the jaw up and down while looking in a mirror, to make sure it looks ok. When you're satisfied with the placement, hot-glue the sponge on.

Once the jaw is attached, you may notice the mouth fabric feeling a bit floaty. You can weigh it down to give a it a better sense of being a "mouth" by pinning a small weight to the inside of it to create a sort of "throat". A knot of left-over fabric works well for this.

One tip, when holding up the jaw in the "closed" state, your eyes should fit just between the tip of your jaw and the upper edge of the mouth. This way you can still see without your Yip Yip opening his mouth.

Comments

[BONSTE]

So how do you get the mouth to move? Do you add a stick to get it to go up and down?

[sliny]

it's varied from person to person, but in my case I just hold the "lip" at about mid-chest, and move it up and down. This means you have to keep one hand at that level at all times, but it's really not that hard.