Puppetry

I thought I'd post some images of the puppetry which is being worked on now.

These three Dragon heads are part of a forty foot dragon which is part of
 The June 19th Pageant at Bryn Athyn Cathedral.
It is the Seven Headed Dragon referred to in the Book of Revelations.
It takes ten puppeteers to operate.

These three heads are in my shop, in order that I can modify them
to accommodate the requirement for them to spew water out of their mouths.
We achieve this using silk to represent water.

Here, the covers, which end up looking like a tongue, create a stowage space for the silk.
These are in process, and the paper mache, formed over an aluminum foil & wire frame, is drying in the sun.

Here is the spring tube mechanism that has replaced the original rubber band design.
With this modification, the jaw is controlled by a spring attached to cables on each side,
thus leaving the mouth open to accommodate the silk.
The cable area is reinforced.

Then the roof of the mouth is closed up, new paper mache applied and then repainted.

            

Here the end of the  tongue is being shaped to create an opening for the forked tongue and silk.
the water is pulled out by children who are attired to represent angels

This shows the tongue shaped before painting

There are many more images of both the dragon and the performances, but I will leave that for another time. I just wanted to post something other than a droning on about the Gnomes of New Hope.

AG