Underwater giant eel puppet. Advice welcome!

Kevin Luck

Hi,
I’m wanting to build an eel puppet to use underwater that will be filmed both underwater and from the surface. I’m thinking that a rod puppet could work, but it may be difficult to get convincing movement. An animatronic puppet might be doable, but getting it “swimming” right and keeping the whole thing watertight might be even more challenging. Suggestions on approach, materials, mechanisms, in fact anything helpful, would be appreciated. 

Cheers, 

Alexander H

I think a rod puppet would still work! If you put a rod at the head and one near the tail, with two hands you could go back and forth to give it the wriggling motion, even twisting the rods. You could also put a jaw mechanism that hooks up to the rod at the head.

Materials wise, I think silicone would be the best bet. I'm not experienced enough to suggest what specific type for this need, but consider what Shore hardness you'd need when researching different types. I know Psycho Paints are often used to paint silicones, though I can't attest to their durability in water.

For mechanism materials, if you have access to a 3D printer, you can design and print the mechanisms. Most plastics used aren't greatly affected by water and so should be long lasting, though keep them out of UV/sunlight when possible, just to be safe.

Chris Ellerby

Rod puppet may be the way to go.  While aquatic animatronics are possible, they are prone to issues and are ideally executed by someone who's done a lot of animatronics.

For the rods, you can get a lot of movement out of just 2 connection points, one by the head and one by the tail.  By twisting the rods in opposite directions you can build that S-curve-style swimming motion.

I would suggest having rod attachment points along the top and along the bottom, so depending on the camera angle you can switch the rods around.

/Chris

Kevin Luck

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look at the rod puppet courses and see how far that gets me. 

Alexander H

You may also learn something about underwater puppetry if you look into the making-of the creatures from The Abyss. Never seen it myself, but I have heard Steve Johnson talking about the challenges with it.

Here's a brief behind-the-scenes I found of it - haven't watched this though, so I don't know what it's like. But if it's Steve, then it should at the very least be... entertaining!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHq-qLEmP4U