ecl's Kermit the Frog Puppet Replica (later builds, using my newest patterns)

[Allekai]

hey there! i had a quick question. looking at the pic of your arm pattern, it says 9 inches. I drew the pattern like i saw it in the picture but 9 inches doesnt look long enough. maybe the piece is too thicc? doing alittle math, i came to the conclusion that it was 2 inches wide, but that looked too skinny so i did 2.5. now I dont know what im doing wrong. could you give me some tips/notes?

 

[ShortWookie]

Where did you get that leonardo head?!

The Leonardo head I found on eBay.
The seller had literally no history for it when I asked. Who ever made it used the second film as a reference from what I could tell.
I'm on and off working on it between projects.

...but that Kermit though! I'm loving the photo updates!

 

[Allekai]

The Leonardo head I found on eBay.
The seller had literally no history for it when I asked. Who ever made it used the second film as a reference from what I could tell.
I'm on and off working on it between projects.

...but that Kermit though! I'm loving the photo updates!

thanks! Would you mind posting a few pics of it? from different angles? id love to see more of it!

 

[MuppetFan20]

What’s up, ECL! How many kermits do you have? Gee, I wish if I have one of your famous amphibian puppets...

 

[ecl]

hey there! i had a quick question. looking at the pic of your arm pattern, it says 9 inches. I drew the pattern like i saw it in the picture but 9 inches doesnt look long enough. maybe the piece is too thicc? doing alittle math, i came to the conclusion that it was 2 inches wide, but that looked too skinny so i did 2.5. now I dont know what im doing wrong. could you give me some tips/notes?

Got to these posts a bit late; haven’t really been checking in as often lately. Your Kermit is looking great! From the pic, it just looks his arms are too wide. Kermit actually has very very thin arms, almost ‘noodly’ in appearance; the original one i saw was even thinner than how I normally make mine. Although it does look some of the later Kermits had slightly thicker arms. 9” from shoulder to wrist is just about what is like on mine too—that was basically the range I kept getting from a bunch of references when I extrapolated measurements from (assuming the eyes are just around 35mm). One other thing is that the Master Replicas Kermit has unusually long arms—so it’s not a good one to use as reference. The proportions of that one are just really strange overall.

The tricky thing about Kermit is that it’s so hard to get an idea of proportions from photos. If I hadn’t had the opportunity to see one on display in person, I wouldn’t have been able to get as far with the builds!

Here’s my last build: the arms are the usual 9”, but the appearance of the length is really different when the arms are thinner.

One way is to just try to see how it is relative to other parts of his body. Here you can really see how thin the arms are, when comparing them to the size of the body.

What’s up, ECL! How many kermits do you have? Gee, I wish if I have one of your famous amphibian puppets...

I only have one Kermit in my collection now (the one pictured in this post)! The others were either given away to family, and a few sold. Not sure if I’ll be making any more; I feel like i‘ve spent enough time with this build haha. But it’s been fun!

 

[rooker2k]

looks so nice .. well done

 

[MuppetFan20]

I know it's to late, but yesterday is my Birthday!

 

[Gophertee]

Thought I would share a few of my pics and patterns. Be gentle, it’s my first build.
Please see the link GopherTee User Profile | DeviantArt

 

[ecl]

Very cool! Great job shaping the foam body too—that’s one of the more difficult parts of the build I think.

 

[MrFormal]

I thought I might give an update about the Kermit I made. I had moved his eyes upwards a while ago, so he doesn't look as... weird. I didn't talk about it before, but I made the palm inserts out of layered duct tape instead of the plastic Ecl was using, poked holes in it for the wire, and plied the wire into the tape.
I like him.

 

[ecl]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing the vid—he’s looking great!

 

[ncollopy]

Thanks so much for all your information. It helped a great deal. Here’s the one I made for my grandson. He loved it!

 

[sctcarts]

Happy Birthday to Jim Henson!

And that’s a good question: I’ve made a total of 13 Kermits since this all began! Hard to believe, but there have been a continuous string of small changes and experiments with materials that I kept wanting to try. I wish I could take a pic of them all together, but some of them went to friends/family, and a few were sold—I typically only just keep one around here in my collection.

The most I’ve had here at one time was 4....luckily, I do have a pic of that! The bottom left one in this pic Is the only one that isn’t a functional puppet, with a solid foam body and closed bottom. This photo was a from 2 years ago, so slightly older builds (but basically from the same patterns that I used today, although my most current pattern/builds are more refined overall) The first three I’d made were slightly bigger, from being scaled up to use 40mm ping pong eyes.

View attachment 1352018

For display, how do you stuff the heads? Your builds look great!

 

[ecl]

Thanks so much for all your information. It helped a great deal. Here’s the one I made for my grandson. He loved it!

That’s great—What a great gift for your grandson! I’m glad the info was of help. I still think the process of making one of these puppets is fascinating. I’ve learned a few things here and there from other builders as well!

For display, how do you stuff the heads? Your builds look great!

Thanks! I just cut two pieces out from foam. The head part is sort of a triangular shape, and a simple cylinder shape to keep the head up. Nothing fancy, but I’ve found it to be a simple way to get the puppet display ready.

All the photos I’ve taken of my builds on display basically have these two pieces inside (easily Removable, of course!):

 

[MuppetFan20]

Hey ecl! I’m planning to make another Kermit, but with improvements. Do you have any puppet patterns to make Kermit the Frog With puppet rods? And do you have a list of materials to make Kermit for 2021?

 

[ecl]

It’s actually fairly simple to make the hands ready for arm rods! There are a bunch of ways to do it, but I‘ve been adding small pockets glued to the styrene hand plate on the palm side. Some people use rubber tubing for the pocket, but I‘ve been using some ultra-suede. Basically whatever you think would be durable enough for the end of the arm rod to slide into. I do that before finishing up the hand, and then simply cut a small hole at the base of his hand toward the back in the fabric, and then add a bit of glue around the hole to clean up the area where it attaches to the base of the inner pocket/palm. This allows for removable arm rods, which I have looking like a handle bar shape, allowing the hand to move inward and outward at the wrist.

An ‘x-ray’ view of how things fit in the hand:

These are generally the materials I’ve used on my kermit builds, but it’s good to experiment with other stuff that might work too:

Had some fun over the holiday taking a few new pics of my build from earlier this year

 

[Pivots]

Hello there! Ecl, I just wanted to say that your work is mesmerazing, and you gave me inspiration to build my own Kermit, or at least try to. I've been searching all the materials, but I can't find the most important one, the fleece; I could buy the Antron fleece on the Internet, but it would be a little pricey for me given that I don't live in the US. Also, I tried searching polar fleece but they don't hace the right color in any of the places that I visited.

If it's not much to ask, could you give another examples of fabric that could be use? I'm thinking about felt, but my fear is that it won't last to long, or it would reap apart when stitching (please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know a lot about fabrics or puppet making). Other fabric that I found with the right color is Dacron (I think that's the way is called in the US, here it's called Tergal stretch), it doesn't have the same texture or thickness, but I think it makes for an interesting puppet texture. Hope you can help me! Thanks in advanced.

 

[ecl]

Hello there! Ecl, I just wanted to say that your work is mesmerazing, and you gave me inspiration to build my own Kermit, or at least try to. I've been searching all the materials, but I can't find the most important one, the fleece; I could buy the Antron fleece on the Internet, but it would be a little pricey for me given that I don't live in the US. Also, I tried searching polar fleece but they don't hace the right color in any of the places that I visited.

If it's not much to ask, could you give another examples of fabric that could be use? I'm thinking about felt, but my fear is that it won't last to long, or it would reap apart when stitching (please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know a lot about fabrics or puppet making). Other fabric that I found with the right color is Dacron (I think that's the way is called in the US, here it's called Tergal stretch), it doesn't have the same texture or thickness, but I think it makes for an interesting puppet texture. Hope you can help me! Thanks in advanced.

Thanks! As for the antron (or nylon fleece), it’s not a particularly easy material to find outside of specialized puppet making supply vendors. I’ve always purchased them online as well. The two main vendors that I’ve purchased from is Puppet Pelts in the USA, and Weird Kid Store in Canada. I actually really like the Weird Kid Store version, as it’s much more textured and has a slightly more vintage look to it—a personal preference of mine. Unfortunately, even ordering from and shipping within the USA, it can get expensive! Typically the most expensive part of any puppet build.

Some people have used standard polar fleece, which doesn’t have that subtle ’sparkly’ look that the nylon fleece has, but it can work for a Kermit build, or other puppets as well. It also tends to be easier to find at craft stores, depending on where you are. I’m not familiar with Dacron or Tergal stretch, if they’re not too expensive, It may be worth trying out just to see how it looks. I think in the beginning, if you’re looking to experiment with materials, it’s great to try a few different options. I do think though, after you feel comfortable jumping into a finalized build, that investing in the nylon/antron fleece would be worth it! It’s just really hard to find anything comparable to it.

 

[Pivots]

Thanks! As for the antron (or nylon fleece), it’s not a particularly easy material to find outside of specialized puppet making supply vendors. I’ve always purchased them online as well. The two main vendors that I’ve purchased from is Puppet Pelts in the USA, and Weird Kid Store in Canada. I actually really like the Weird Kid Store version, as it’s much more textured and has a slightly more vintage look to it—a personal preference of mine. Unfortunately, even ordering from and shipping within the USA, it can get expensive! Typically the most expensive part of any puppet build.

Some people have used standard polar fleece, which doesn’t have that subtle ’sparkly’ look that the nylon fleece has, but it can work for a Kermit build, or other puppets as well. It also tends to be easier to find at craft stores, depending on where you are. I’m not familiar with Dacron or Tergal stretch, if they’re not too expensive, It may be worth trying out just to see how it looks. I think in the beginning, if you’re looking to experiment with materials, it’s great to try a few different options. I do think though, after you feel comfortable jumping into a finalized build, that investing in the nylon/antron fleece would be worth it! It’s just really hard to find anything comparable to it.

You're right, I'll buy some fabric that might do the job, after all, it's my first puppet and I was getting ahead of myself by trying to make everything 'perfect'. For the last couples of days I've been invested in your threads, gathering all the information that you gave and transalting it to have everything under control. Thank you so much for the constant input that you give to everyone that is inspired by your incredible job, you're as awesome as your builds!

 

[Gophertee]

Here is my "Covid Kermit" ha ha. Thanks ECL for all your work and inspiration!

Please see link for pics: GopherTee User Profile | DeviantArt