I'm working on a Kermit too and am playing with scale. The old patterns ECL posted in the other thread said the mouth plate should be about 4" wide. But that was scaled to eyes made out of 40mm ping-pong balls. ECL's more recent builds have been scaled to 3.5mm eyes, so by that math the mouthplate should be ~3.5" wide.
Problem with that is that it makes the head really small. I've seen two different original Kermits in museums, and they are smaller than you'd think. But Jim Henson's hands were notoriously large, and I can't fathom how he'd fit them in a head that small.
(Reply RE 'Jim Henson's Hands' as it relates to Kermit's head size of real puppets observed in display.)
UPDATED: added one more image from Jim Henson's actual notes on Kermit, in the center for Puppetry Arts.
Hi all!
Well, I know this is an old thread, but I've been in the process of making Kermit, hence, why I'm here.
The Henson hand size thing as it relates to Kermits head size intrigued me, so I did an analysis.
BTW, I'm not claiming that
nobody knows this, but for those who might not have considered it...
Yes, Kermit's head in real life seems surprisingly small considering Henson was notoriously big-handed.
I think the disconnect comes because we don't actually visualize what his hand looked like INSIDE, since when Kermit is around Henson's hands are not.
SO I made these observations and I hope the visuals help explain it. Basically and in a nutshell, when we think of how to puppet Kermit, we may not have our hand inside the head as Henson did. You see, we tend to think that the head "bends" we position our knuckles in are the same as the "bends" that were on Kermit's when puppeted by Henson. That's an innocent oversight. When we look at knuckles,
we basically use our knuckles further inward, towards the tip of the mouth, when in fact Henson used
his hands 1 knuckle group back, DUE TO his big hands.
Voila! Ah-ha!
See the images. You can tell that the back of
his hand is further back, and that the tips of his fingers are positioned further back, where
we position our hands and fingertips further in. So essentially, Henson's 2nd knuckles (from the tip of his phalanges) are actually at the bend positioned almost directly under Kermit's eyes.
If anything, the eyes are closer and almost right on top of Henson's 2nd knuckles - whereas, most of us,
as soon as we put our hands inside Kermit's head we tend to go for our 3rd (and main largest) knuckles (for the eyes) where they connect to the metacarpals of the palm.
*(This also makes way more sense (
how Henson did it) because it puts less strain on the arms and hand tendons sustained in a raised upward position while opening and closing the fingertips.)
Technically, his style of hand position is making it easier to puppeteer, since the flexors and extensors of the hands and arm would be injured within hours or days of the arm positioned upward and the hand bent at the big knuckles almost at a perfect 90-degree angle (and beyond if making the puppet look down.) Consider the wrong hand position
and having to bend even further than 90 degrees of angle, plus flip the thumb downward to get the mouth to open downward,
and also so that Kermit's gaze is not overly upward.
It's just not possible to hold that position long without cramping or injury, especially not for years of performing it like that.)
In conclusion, when we see a legit puppet used by Henson in person, such as Kermit, it is a little difficult to understand how 'big hands' like Henson's could fit inside the head. Still, we just have to change our perspective on how HE puppeteered Kermit, which is something we never see since the hands are concealed during those moments, and all we could observe is the outside of the head.
I believe that's why the Kermit puppets IRL may look smaller than we would think, and that's because the head seems to wrap around Henson's hand one way when we imagine it another way. This is what makes his performance
so different and unique, and also difficult to mimic, since we may be starting with the wrong hand positioning out of the gate! =)
Hope that makes sense. Just move knuckles back one bend! Voila!
ECl, KO, and all the people here contributing, you are rock stars! We are lucky to have you, and all the contributors. This is such a wonderful community, and I'm a new member and happy I joined.
Thanks to you all!
IMAGE 1 - Henson's hand (in natural and puppeting pose) and knuckles study during interview he is talking about and showing how he puppets Kermit. *Lines added to highlight his knuckles and bends.
IMAGE 2 - Kermit's head comparison with lines showing head bends in relation to the lines of Henson's lines.
IMAGE 3 - Kermit again in one of Henson's performances of RC. Lines highlighting again the major bends from a slightly different angle.
IMAGE 4 - An outline of the previous Kermit image, overlapped in the same position and scaled onto Jim Henson's hand, to illustrate where the bends and knuckles are in both covered and visible states.
ADDED ON NOV. 11, 2023
IMAGE 5 - a drawing from Jim on Kermit puppet. This image shows a part of the drawing that shows the hands, in Henson's own words!
