a few questions about making puppets

Itay Bazak

i'm going to make puppets for my own godzilla youtube series.

so first, some characters are going to be casted in foam latex, but because my budget is limited, i can't cast all characters so i'll need to make some of them like the "garage monsters" and "foam fabrication" tutorials.
but to make them, i need a lot of soft upholstery foam, and i can't get these at stores ( i did get a little bit, but i can't get thick ones). so do you know any place who sells a lot of foam cheaply?  
 and second, if i use a rod puppet that has legs, how do i move the legs?

Chris Ellerby

For the foam:  I would visit local upholstery shops and see if they have any scraps they would be willing to sell you.  If you are super lucky they may even give you some for free.   While there, I would ask them where they source their foam.

As for the legs on the rod puppet, it depends on how you plan on puppeteering the character, and what the shot is.  

One method is to have the rods attached at the feet of the puppet and then link them to your puppeteer's feet.  This method requires rotoscoping or chroma keying out the performer, or having the puppeteer as far back as possible.  Here is an example of that from the movie AI:



Depending on the framing of the shot, you can have each leg controlled by a puppeteer standing just off camera.  Here is an example of the "Bambi" alien from Aliens 3 (that sadly never made the film), which has multiple puppeteers controlling the legs:



If you have a raised set floor, the legs can be controlled from beneath the floor, but this option is not typically available on smaller productions.   This example (Also from Aliens 3) was controlled from below and chroma keyed/composited into the shot in post production.  This style of puppeteering also works through raised floors or if the performer are framed out.   One example would be to have the performers laying on their backs and frame the shot so just the tops of the feet or lower legs are visible.  To get the feet to feel like they are hitting a hard surface the rod can have a flat plate at the bottom which can impact the ground.



Another option is to avoid showing the legs moving in puppet shots, and when you need to show walking or crushing you can cut to a pair of insert legs worn by a performer.  Here are a couple examples of that from Jurassic Park:




Legs can be difficult to puppeteer, as it is notoriously hard to make them look like they are carrying weight.  Try to avoid having the puppet appear weightless by practicing walk cycles that focus on which leg is currently bearing the character's weight.

Good luck!

/Chris