Beaker Muppet Replica a.k.a. "Meep-meep Meep-meep meep-meep-meep"

[bk85]

Taking a break between Kermit builds to try my hand at making everyone's favorite lab assistant, Beaker.

I'm planing to surprise a family member with him for Christmas, so I hope to be done with this one much faster than I was done with my 1st version of Kermit. Fingers crossed!

Like all Muppets, Beaker has had some changes to his appearance over the years. I am targeting the look of the current Beaker, posted above. I think the head will be the easiest but I know I'm going to struggle with the clothes. I am going to have to make them from scratch, rather than modifying pre-purchased clothes. I do need to decide if I want to make it accurate to the way that he normally is, or if I want to make a sort of hybrid full body puppet. I haven't quite decided yet.

Beaker's head is, from my understanding, usually made from a 4-inch diameter cardboard tube. Originally that was my plan, but I have now decided to go with a 3d printed version. I don't love the idea of using cardboard, and feel that the plastic will be more durable. It'll also allow me to do some minor things I wouldn't have been able to do in cardboard. Having it as a 3d file also allows for easier modification as I go along.
I started this project in Illustrator. I pulled in a both a profile and a straight on shot of Beaker from the same time period and began tracing all of the major landmarks. I then pulled these illustrations into Blender and began modeling, using them as a template.

To help you visualize some of the things I'm doing, I'll talk briefly about the cardboard method. You would normally cut out the shape of his mouth from the tube and set the cut our arch shape aside as that makes the lower jaw/mouth. You then cut out a sort of semi-circle out of the area just below your 1st mouth cut out to allow for his jaw room to pivot. It'll be covered up by the fleece later, so he won't have a gaping hole in his face. Without removing a bit extra, the mouth wouldn't be able to flap open since it's a curved shape. This gap accounts for that curve. I believe that a rounded piece of foam is attached to the top of the head to give some shape to the hair.

I decided to do a couple of things that I wouldn't have normally been able to do if this was cardboard. I made walls on both inner parts of the mouth to allow for an integrated mouth plate. Normally in cardboard you would add these sections with a bit of glue, and I was originally going to follow suit, but it didn't seem like a super secure way of doing things. I know that many people do it this way (possibly even the official muppet builders) but I just don't see a piece of plastic (or whatever mouth plate material you want to use) glued to a 2mm border of cardboard to be the best way of doing things. I have a lot of faith in Barge cement but I think this might be pushing it. I don't live near this family member so I wouldn't be around to fix Beaker when needed. Doing it my way, the mouth plate is fully integrated with the respective pieces of the head.

Since I am going with plastic, I figured I could get away with the main cylinder being 1.5mm thick to balance durability with being as light weight as possible. I also knew that I would be making the eyes out of unfinished wood knobs, 2" in diameter. These are heaver than I would like but there are some up sides to them. They come pre-drilled, have a slightly flat side to them where the hole is, which I sometimes see on various Beakers through the years. In some shots his eyes are perfect spheres all the way around, and in others the part of the eyes against his face are slightly flattened. I will be attaching these with screws and nuts, so I want there to be a bit more stability to the area where the eyes are inserted. I bulked out this area and made 1/4" holes at the appropriate angle and spacing so that the eyes just barely touch in the center. I also made a separate dome shape that can pop on top of the head for the hair. I left a hole at the center of this to try and allow somewhere for heat to escape. The hope is that you'll never know there is a hole under the fur that makes up the hair. If the hair was something thin like fleece, I probably wouldn't be able to get away with this modification.

Main head

Eye bracket (inside)

Dome top

Mouth

view of head and mouth from below

Once printed, the head and mouth looked like this:

Now to test fit the eyes and hope that my math worked. I used 1/4" x 1-1/2" hangar bolts. These are a bolt that has 2 different threads in it. It's usually what is used to attach legs to a sofa or upholstered chair. I used the coarser thread to screw into the wooden ball, and used the finer 1/4"-20 thread to attach to the head with a wing nut. I found a handy dandy drill attachment that allows the finer threads to screw into it allowing the other end to be easily drilled into the receiving item. Since these knobs were pre-drilled I was able to easily use a screw driver rather than pull out the drill.

This was a great success, but I realized that the edges of the flats backs of the eyes stuck out away from the curve of the head just a bit too much. I'm 99% certain this would definitely be filled in with the fleece covering but decided to do a slight remodel anyway. I added some flat-ish areas so that the center of the backs of the eyes were slightly set into the head. Also, you can't see it much in the above photo because it was after forcing the eyes together, but the eyes were separated by about 1.5 mm or so. I adjusted the angle so they would meet without having to manually adjust the screws.

I couldn't print the whole v1.2 head today as it's about an 8 hour print and I don't want my printer running too late into the night (mostly because of the noise and apartment neighbors but I guess I should say fire hazard too). I did have time to do a test of just the eye portion, so I separated it out from the rest of the head and printed to test. This did the trick, and I'll be printing out the full one tomorrow! This is where I'll leave you for today. Oh, and just like my Kermit- I do plan on posting my patterns and .stl files as well once I'm all done.

 

[bk85]

It's been a minute since I had an update, but I hit a wall when trying to figure out Beaker's clothes and had to have a game plan for that before I wanted to move forward with body construction. I spent a bunch of time learning how to do some basic clothing patterning for a non-human shape, and even more time feeling like it was futile . I definitely took a break for a hot minute and fell into the swamp of sadness before I picked myself up, put on my big boy pants and started moving forward again.

Before I lost momentum, I had attached Beaker's mouth, applied the inner "decor" to it, and also made and attached an inner liner so that the user wouldn't feel the hard plastic when puppeteering. First, I used a bit of Ultrasuede ST to make the hinge that connects the mouth pieces. This hinge went from the flat part of the mouth flap to the flat part of the head part. It was attached on both pieces to where the puppeteers hand would go, as the accoutrements inside the mouth would provide an additional inner hinge. I then used more Ultrasuede ST for the mouth (scoundrel), throat opening (black onyx), and tongue (Bermuda pink). To make things a bit easier on me, I made up the whole inner mouth, glued all of the ultrasuede together and then attached it to the head. I oversized the red part of the mouth and trimmed it once applied.

I then started working on an inner liner just to make things a bit more comfortable and to give a texture that would be easier to grip on to than the plastic would be. I also wanted the fabric to act as a soft bridge in the area under the mouth that is just an open space, in order to help prevent the fleece from sinking in. I went with the same 10 oz canvas that I used on my v2 Kermit build, but this time in gray. I knew what shape I wanted but couldn't wrap my head around how to pattern it, until I realized that it's basically an oven mitt- the type that has the thumb in front, not the type that's like a mitten. Looking at a few pics of that helped me figure out how best to pattern it.

Since I knew that I would have to sew up some clothing, I decided to spring for a serger/overlocker to help finish the edges. If you read through my Kermit build, you might remember that I previously used a combination of a straight stitch and a zig-sag stitch to prevent the fabric from fraying. The serger does this in 1 step, while also trimming the excess fabric and making it look nice and neat. It took some trial and error but I am so happy with the purchase. I glued the finished lining to the inner part of the head, and the flat part of the mouth attachment. I also added just a dab of glue to the neck area to keep it in place under the mouth.

That was when I put the physical build on hold for a bit, but the past few days have been more productive. I got my clothing patterns figured out (I think, still need to sew them up) and covered the head. I also build a body for him, but that was basically a sheet of L200 foam formed into a cylinder. Beaker's body has no shape to it and is just a tube (from what I can tell), which is what was making the clothing patterning difficult for me to figure out as a beginner.

For the head covering, I took my 3d model and exported it out of Blender as a paper model, which gave me a flat diagram for where the mouth will go on the fleece and the proper curve for it. I then cut it out of the fleece, and cut out a 4-1/2 inch circle of orange fur to use as the hair. The fur needs to be cut with a razor blade so that only the mesh back is cut, leaving all strands of fur their original length. The fleece is pre-dyed Nylafleece. I wanted to use F3 fleece but since I need to get this done by Christmas, I didn't have time to figure out the dye formulas. Nylafleee is the only puppet fleece that I can find that is readily available in the colors that I need. After sewing up the back seam of Beaker's head with a ladder stitch, I then attached the fur to the top of the fleece using a whip stitch, and slipped it over the head to test. I'm happy with how it looks so far, but I'll have no idea how accurate it is until I get the eyes and nose done.

I'm holding off on gluing the lip line until I get a bit further along so that I can remove the covering as needed.

I also cut out all of my fabric that makes up the shirt. I'm kind of impatient, and low on time, so I just went for it on the actual fabric rather than mocking it up out of muslin or something. Beaker's clothing changes a bit over the years but I am going with the look that has been pretty stable for the past while. It consists of a shirt made from a dark green 1/8" gingham, a light green lab coat, and dark green tie. Although Beaker doesn't really have legs on any of the puppets that I have seen, I am adding some to this one so that it is more presentable as a gift. The pants will be made from a brown plaid. This also means that the coat will be a bit more tailored since the real one has an extremely baggy coat to allow the puppeteers room to freely more their arms. But I'm just focusing on the shirt for now. Here are my pieces all cut out, ready to be sewn up over the next few days... hopefully.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have made some more progress before the weekend!

 

[greenmachines]

It's been a minute since I had an update, but I hit a wall when trying to figure out Beaker's clothes and had to have a game plan for that before I wanted to move forward with body construction. I spent a bunch of time learning how to do some basic clothing patterning for a non-human shape, and even more time feeling like it was futile . I definitely took a break for a hot minute and fell into the swamp of sadness before I picked myself up, put on my big boy pants and started moving forward again.

Before I lost momentum, I had attached Beaker's mouth, applied the inner "decor" to it, and also made and attached an inner liner so that the user wouldn't feel the hard plastic when puppeteering. First, I used a bit of Ultrasuede ST to make the hinge that connects the mouth pieces. This hinge went from the flat part of the mouth flap to the flat part of the head part. It was attached on both pieces to where the puppeteers hand would go, as the accoutrements inside the mouth would provide an additional inner hinge. I then used more Ultrasuede ST for the mouth (scoundrel), throat opening (black onyx), and tongue (Bermuda pink). To make things a bit easier on me, I made up the whole inner mouth, glued all of the ultrasuede together and then attached it to the head. I oversized the red part of the mouth and trimmed it once applied.

View attachment 1881355View attachment 1881356View attachment 1881357View attachment 1881358View attachment 1881359

I then started working on an inner liner just to make things a bit more comfortable and to give a texture that would be easier to grip on to than the plastic would be. I also wanted the fabric to act as a soft bridge in the area under the mouth that is just an open space, in order to help prevent the fleece from sinking in. I went with the same 10 oz canvas that I used on my v2 Kermit build, but this time in gray. I knew what shape I wanted but couldn't wrap my head around how to pattern it, until I realized that it's basically an oven mitt- the type that has the thumb in front, not the type that's like a mitten. Looking at a few pics of that helped me figure out how best to pattern it.

Since I knew that I would have to sew up some clothing, I decided to spring for a serger/overlocker to help finish the edges. If you read through my Kermit build, you might remember that I previously used a combination of a straight stitch and a zig-sag stitch to prevent the fabric from fraying. The serger does this in 1 step, while also trimming the excess fabric and making it look nice and neat. It took some trial and error but I am so happy with the purchase. I glued the finished lining to the inner part of the head, and the flat part of the mouth attachment. I also added just a dab of glue to the neck area to keep it in place under the mouth.

View attachment 1881360View attachment 1881361View attachment 1881362View attachment 1881363View attachment 1881364View attachment 1881365View attachment 1881366

That was when I put the physical build on hold for a bit, but the past few days have been more productive. I got my clothing patterns figured out (I think, still need to sew them up) and covered the head. I also build a body for him, but that was basically a sheet of L200 foam formed into a cylinder. Beaker's body has no shape to it and is just a tube (from what I can tell), which is what was making the clothing patterning difficult for me to figure out as a beginner.

For the head covering, I took my 3d model and exported it out of Blender as a paper model, which gave me a flat diagram for where the mouth will go on the fleece and the proper curve for it. I then cut it out of the fleece, and cut out a 4-1/2 inch circle of orange fur to use as the hair. The fur needs to be cut with a razor blade so that only the mesh back is cut, leaving all strands of fur their original length. The fleece is pre-dyed Nylafleece. I wanted to use F3 fleece but since I need to get this done by Christmas, I didn't have time to figure out the dye formulas. Nylafleee is the only puppet fleece that I can find that is readily available in the colors that I need. After sewing up the back seam of Beaker's head with a ladder stitch, I then attached the fur to the top of the fleece using a whip stitch, and slipped it over the head to test. I'm happy with how it looks so far, but I'll have no idea how accurate it is until I get the eyes and nose done.

I'm holding off on gluing the lip line until I get a bit further along so that I can remove the covering as needed.

View attachment 1881368View attachment 1881369View attachment 1881370View attachment 1881371View attachment 1881372View attachment 1881373View attachment 1881374View attachment 1881375

I also cut out all of my fabric that makes up the shirt. I'm kind of impatient, and low on time, so I just went for it on the actual fabric rather than mocking it up out of muslin or something. Beaker's clothing changes a bit over the years but I am going with the look that has been pretty stable for the past while. It consists of a shirt made from a dark green 1/8" gingham, a light green lab coat, and dark green tie. Although Beaker doesn't really have legs on any of the puppets that I have seen, I am adding some to this one so that it is more presentable as a gift. The pants will be made from a brown plaid. This also means that the coat will be a bit more tailored since the real one has an extremely baggy coat to allow the puppeteers room to freely more their arms. But I'm just focusing on the shirt for now. Here are my pieces all cut out, ready to be sewn up over the next few days... hopefully.

View attachment 1881376

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have made some more progress before the weekend!

I always empathized with Beaker as he seemed to just need a few clinical hours and enough money for another semester but got stuck as lab assistant.

Speaking of, you will need a couple removable hair and face slip ons to have at least one bedgraggled and one burnt.

 

[bk85]

As I sit here at my sewing machine making his shirt, I just want to share with the world that SEWING SLEEVES SUCKS. They came out super good though (for a first time sleeve sewer upper at least)

 

[bk85]

I always empathized with Beaker as he seemed to just need a few clinical hours and enough money for another semester but got stuck as lab assistant.

Speaking of, you will need a couple removable hair and face slip ons to have at least one bedgraggled and one burnt.

Totally! Once I get the standard head where I want it, I plan on occasionally making swappable heads with the light up eyes, burnt up head, floppy boneless head, etc. I think Beaker has, by far, the most options when it comes to the puppet itself, whereas the others are always pretty much the same head/body build with different clothes or accessories.

 

[greenmachines]

Totally! Once I get the standard head where I want it, I plan on occasionally making swappable heads with the light up eyes, burnt up head, floppy boneless head, etc. I think Beaker has, by far, the most options when it comes to the puppet itself, whereas the others are always pretty much the same head/body build with different clothes or accessories.

Beaker suffers so we might have laughter. It is sick but true.

The sleeve angst is so real. I once made two right sleeves, then fixed one, then sewed them on the wrong sides then fixed that and sewed the added cuff on inside out. I did not fix that.

 

[bk85]

Ok guys, so I kinda dropped the ball with taking progress pics as I got further along. I was in a mad rush to get Beaker finished for Christmas, had never sewed clothing in my life and had to keep starting over and over again. I also re-did the head fleece a bit. By the end of it I was just so focused on getting it ready in time. That being said I already have plans to make it better for my v2- just need to let the funds build up after the holidays so that I can get more supplies. I'll start off with the finished puppet and show what few progress pics I have below. Once I work on v2 for myself, I'll document the whole thing and upload the files!

Here is the new head with better fur for the hair and hand dyed F3 fleece. I went with he F3 because it has a sheen to it that the nylafleece doesn't and I prefer the texture more. I originally went with nylafleece because it was pre-dyed but a week before I had to fly out, I decided to wing it with dying my own F3. The first batch came out way too dark but when I reduced the amount of dye to 25% of the original, I got a great color.

First attempt of dye:

Second and final attempt:

This time, I decided to cut the fleece a few inches longer than the head and wrap it up into the bottom inside of the head. I had it go all the way up to the straight bottom of the mouth plate so that it would give a bit more structure to the semicircle cutout. This worked out great and really helps prevent the fleece under his mouth from sinking in and helps hide any bulge from your thumb when operating. I used a bit of paper to help protect the outward facing fleece when I was gluing up the bottom/inside part.

I also went with a shorter fur for the hair, but made the dome a bit talker by padding it out with a bit of 1/4" foam. When attaching the head fleece, I used a few spots of contact cement to make it stay put and not shift, and thoroughly glued the part of the fleece that rolls up into the inside of the head. I also secured the lip line around the mouth plate with the contact cement. I really took my time on the lip line going VERY slowly and using a very fine paint brush to apply the glue to the fleece and mouth plate. I would say that the fleece overlaps the edge of the red ultrasuede by about 1/8"-3/16".

And at that point, I had 3 days before I flew out to my mom's house and she doesn't have a sewing machine, so it was all clothing until the flight. I hand sewed the nose (which I 3d printed and covered in nylafleece), eyes, and attached everything together by hand at my mom's house, finishing the morning of Christmas Eve... just in time!!

My brother was SO shocked and happy to receive this gift. It was a massive pain to make (mostly the clothes) but it was so worth it to see his reaction.

 

[greenmachines]

Ok guys, so I kinda dropped the ball with taking progress pics as I got further along. I was in a mad rush to get Beaker finished for Christmas, had never sewed clothing in my life and had to keep starting over and over again. I also re-did the head fleece a bit. By the end of it I was just so focused on getting it ready in time. That being said I already have plans to make it better for my v2- just need to let the funds build up after the holidays so that I can get more supplies. I'll start off with the finished puppet and show what few progress pics I have below. Once I work on v2 for myself, I'll document the whole thing and upload the files!
View attachment 1892600View attachment 1892603View attachment 1892604View attachment 1892605

Here is the new head with better fur for the hair and hand dyed F3 fleece. I went with he F3 because it has a sheen to it that the nylafleece doesn't and I prefer the texture more. I originally went with nylafleece because it was pre-dyed but a week before I had to fly out, I decided to wing it with dying my own F3. The first batch came out way too dark but when I reduced the amount of dye to 25% of the original, I got a great color.

First attempt of dye:
View attachment 1892591

Second and final attempt:
View attachment 1892593

This time, I decided to cut the fleece a few inches longer than the head and wrap it up into the bottom inside of the head. I had it go all the way up to the straight bottom of the mouth plate so that it would give a bit more structure to the semicircle cutout. This worked out great and really helps prevent the fleece under his mouth from sinking in and helps hide any bulge from your thumb when operating. I used a bit of paper to help protect the outward facing fleece when I was gluing up the bottom/inside part.

I also went with a shorter fur for the hair, but made the dome a bit talker by padding it out with a bit of 1/4" foam. When attaching the head fleece, I used a few spots of contact cement to make it stay put and not shift, and thoroughly glued the part of the fleece that rolls up into the inside of the head. I also secured the lip line around the mouth plate with the contact cement. I really took my time on the lip line going VERY slowly and using a very fine paint brush to apply the glue to the fleece and mouth plate. I would say that the fleece overlaps the edge of the red ultrasuede by about 1/8"-3/16".

View attachment 1892594View attachment 1892595View attachment 1892596View attachment 1892597View attachment 1892598View attachment 1892599

And at that point, I had 3 days before I flew out to my mom's house and she doesn't have a sewing machine, so it was all clothing until the flight. I hand sewed the nose (which I 3d printed and covered in nylafleece), eyes, and attached everything together by hand at my mom's house, finishing the morning of Christmas Eve... just in time!!

My brother was SO shocked and happy to receive this gift. It was a massive pain to make (mostly the clothes) but it was so worth it to see his reaction.

talk about a RARE gift. It would be the first ever that I know of. Hey bro remember how you loved muppets?.... delivers package.... happy tears

 

[KOMakesThings]

Stellar build as always, and your detailed descriptions make it ever so tempting to try this build myself. Beaker must feel a little lonesome without Bunsen though, maybe you'll have to make him your Christmas gift for next year ha ha.