Full Sized Horse Puppet
Our high school produced “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”and mimicked the design Kraig Sturtz's post from May 2015 https://forums.stanwinstonschool.com/discussion/2607/full-size-horse-puppet-bunraku-style ) - Thank you Kraig!
In the photo above, it is resting on a black wooden stand. When used, the puppeteers enter from below and strap into hiker backpack frames that are attached to the overall horse frame. These are adjustable within 4-5 inches to allow for varying heights of puppeteers.
I’m not a welder, so we used a wood frame with PVC electrical conduit for the exterior. (I’m betting if an aluminum frame was used, it would save some weight.) I used a large torch (typically used for weed removal or tar repair) to soften the conduit. This allowed the tubes to be shaped as needed. The ears and tail move using levers the rider pulls (bicycle break levers).
The legs articulate similar to the design Kraig displayed. We added red LED’s in the eye sockets to create a sinister style.
I have added several pictures of my attempt during construction to a google drive (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WHCmViCfZDCt-Jh3VAKzumEvjn7aE_9P?usp=drive_link hoping this might also help others.
The site includes several pictures of build, a video of it in use druing construction https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pXlHBUaV6Gu76YbLR1RDYGMvbNy2T638/view?usp=drive_link (although the mane and front puppet leg articulation were not completed - leg handles were changed), and a pdf user manual created for the kids https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QLNWi4-bMs--kP3pp21XaiSATXAVNqtT/view?usp=drive_link
The puppet is right around 100 pounds itself. We had a rider on top, so this was very heavy for the puppeters. (They did an excellent job.) I would estimate this took about 150 hours of work.
I don’t have a picture of the performance, but we heavily low fogged the stage during this scene and had the horse emerge from the back stage right.
This was my first time doing something like this and Kraig’s pictures were incredibly helpful. (Kraig's is better!) Thank you Kraig.
Our final performance was last night… now what do we do with this thing!