Fun with my ESB Yoda Puppet

Wonderful - it's very lifelike

Man that's nice!!

You really nailed him!

great poses m8. what have you put in the ear to pose them, i was scared to put wire into mine incase it ripped the latex

Boring maybe, but the classic is, well, just classic!

Looks great

It looks wonderful, Gino.

What is the food made of? Growing up, I always thought he was eating fish sticks or something.

It always looked like a large Chick-O-Stick to me...

HoosierTrooper said:

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It looks wonderful, Gino.

What is the food made of? Growing up, I always thought he was eating fish sticks or something.

Thanks guys.
I just carefully fed a thin wire through the ears. No guts no glory.

I can't believe that you said chick-o-stick. I always thought that too!
I don't know what the original stuff was, but for the photo shoot I just used one of my dog's beef basted rawhide bones. Looked convincing enough.

once and for all: AMAZING!!!
(like all your props... )

Thank Rocko!

Here's a pic of Luke's dinner.
Who knows what it really is, but I can sure tell you what I think it looks like.

Maybe it was some real food, maybe it was just a prop.

GINO said:

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Thanks guys.
I can't believe that you said chick-o-stick. I always thought that too!

Well, you know, great minds and all...

This is just beautiful. Yoda from Empire was always the best Yoda and you guys NAILED him.

This makes me one one badly. My daughter would LOVE Yoda! haha

Great thread. Thanks for sharing the photos! Feel free to post more!!!!

GINO said:

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With all the attention Cyberman and I have been getting on our Darth Maul/Ray Park head sculpt, I just wanted to show off our first collaboration. We have just started our third, and have just as high of expectations for it as well.

I was documenting some of my props for my new Web site and thought it might be a cool idea to tinker around with my yoda puppet. What good is it being a puppet if you can't have fun posing it?

It still is very much in progress. Seam lines need work, head/hands/feet need painted, robes need distressing, hand and feet nails need added, flute, belt, pouch, and new cane need to be made, etc..
Regardless, I think it looks pretty cool nonetheless. I really want to finish him up but I've just got way too many projects going on all at once.

Let me know what you think.


First, the standard promo pose from the "you want the impossible" scene. Classic, but kind of boring.






A bit more interesting, one of my favorite poses, the "i was wondering, why are you here?" pose.








A bit more fun with "how you get so big eating food of this kind?"

I always liked the pose when Yoda finds lukes Flashlight and plays with over his face. Or the pose when R2 trieds to take it from him. "No....Mine.....Or i help you not."

What a brilliant idea feeding wires along the ears to get then the stick up like that... Cool! You're gonna be busy soon with your airbrush I understand

Looks Great Gino!!! C

Cyberman said:

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What a brilliant idea feeding wires along the ears to get then the stick up like that... Cool! You're gonna be busy soon with your airbrush I understand

I know I should have had you put them in in the first place.
Airbrush ready and waiting.

Just for clarifying.....is that your personal puppet or is this a project that will be offered one time as cybermans fantastic yoda puppet?

Cyberman and I worked together on the creation of the head, hands and feet, the rest is me.
This is my personal puppet/build up. Other people have some of the same pieces, but each were built up slightly differently. As far as I know, so far mine is the only one built as a semi-functioning puppet.
Mine is in progress, but Cyberman and Cking have both posted photos of their build-ups totally finished.

Ah, i see. Do you have a link for this finished pieces? I must say, i love the poses of yours because he is not lookin like most of the other lifesize yodas. My personal favorite is your second pose from yoda. Its nice to see him in totally different way as a lifesize. So yours is from latex if its possable?

That one is my favorite as well...so far.
I knew early on that I wanted the display to be posable because I couldn't decide on a definitive static pose for life.
The thing is that in person, you feel like at any second it could just start talking and moving about. And it is virtually impossible to not do the voice when messing with him. Especially when you have your hand up through the body and into the head. I bet they had great fun with the original on set.
If only we could have made him fully animetronic. Beyond our skill sets.
Yes, it is foam filled latex.

Yes, fully posable would be killer.

It just about fully posable now, just not animetronic in the face.

But in the second pose he has his mouth open, so you could work a little bit with his mimik or not?

Yeah the head is foam filled but still hollow. You basically puppet it just like the original with your arm up his torso and your hand into his head cavity and mouth.
The eyes, eyelids, and ears on the original were controlled by a secondary cable operator. That's the animetronic aspect that mine lacks.