Wolf Puppet for Music Video

This is a photo journey through a wolf I created for a slim budget music video for a friend. I have a background in sculpture, but this was my first time doing creature work and decided to give it a go. While it won't fool a human up close, a few dogs walking by barked like crazy while we were shooting, so it's close enough to start fights.

The head needed to be puppeteered and was cast in a silicone shell so the performer could move the mouth and eyes with a hand inside. A good amount of time was spent hair punching the silicone around the muzzle to get it to look somewhat natural. I used plastic eyes, mouth and tongue from a taxidermy catalog and rigged it to be performed a bit. The body was mostly for a long shot so was on a rigid frame. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments!

Step 1: Sculpting

Step 2: Mold Making

Step 3: Cast

Step 4: Hair Punching

Step 5: Everything Else

Comments

[porgo0]

you took great effort in this!
but would´nt it have been easier to use a taxidermy foam head?

[leftmusing]

Funny you should ask. I ended up using a taxidermy foam head as the base for the clay sculpt. It wouldn't work as the base of the final piece for a few reasons. (1) It needed to be operated from the interior (a puppet) and the foam is solid on the inside and rigid so it couldn't be performed. (2) It needed to have faux fur punched into it which is best done into silicone. (3) They don't have ears, nose, eyes etc since that usually comes from the fur being mounting.

[Treasure Tabby]

Great puppet design.I can just picture it also being used as a prop for a little red riding hood play. Or some other play on some other fairy tail. :)