Making a full-body Miss Piggy replica (WIP)

[KOMakesThings]

I've been working on making myself a Miss Piggy replica for a good while now. I usually avoid posting WIP shots of my projects for fear that I'll lose momentum and never actually complete them, but I think I'm safely past the point of no return with Piggy here. So lemme get ya'll caught up with where I'm at, and then I'll circle back to how I got here.

As far as I understand, the modern Piggy's head is made from cast foam latex that's then flocked, but that's a bit beyond me so I'm gonna go the route that most folks making Piggy take: Using good ol' foam and fleece. My Piggy is made from 0.5 inch foam, the head and limbs are upholstery foam and the torso and hips are EVA foam. I figured a sturdier foam would be good for the torso/hips, so that Piggy has a bit of structure to help hold her head up (Which I figure will be important with the weight of the wig she'll eventually be wearing).

I'm not actually gonna keep her arm as the foam FYI, I just wanted to get a base shape built so I could test the shape/size/proportions. Piggy is mostly together at this point, though I've held off attaching her nose as I think it might be easier to cover her head with the fleece if the nose isn't in place yet. I want my Piggy to be functional as a puppet but also look good standing in my office, so I'm planning on keeping the torso/hips detachable so that when I want her in puppet mode I just need to awkwardly bisect her.

So backing up to how I got here, I knew I would struggle trying to sculpt Piggy from scratch, so I decided to cheat a little bit with the cosplay trick of using saran wrap/duct tape to pull patterns from two pieces of Piggy merch: The Fisher Price Miss Piggy puppet, and the Miss Piggy Fantasy Dress-up Doll. I'm not great at making patterns, so I did have to do some tweaking and experimenting with where the seam lines needed to be (A lotta times I thought I needed a dart which turned out to be kinda unnecessary once I made the jump to the upholstery foam).

The Piggy doll strangely has flat feet (How very un-Piggy!), so I ended up drafting my own heeled foot to pull a pattern from. This was just some cardboard padded out with newspaper, then wrapped with masking tape. I ended up using the same method to draft Piggy's ears as well (Which I'm still undecided on regarding the size, guess I'll see how they look once they're covered with fleece).

I scanned the duct tape patterns, then printed them out on paper to test what size I needed to scale things too. I used my Kermit build to roughly check the size, though I found that it's kinda hard to guesstimate the relative height of a Muppet since we rarely see them full body with their feet planted on the ground.

You can see in these photos that I ended up doing a take 2 on the torso/hip pieces, my first attempt somehow resulted in a Piggy with a sorta wasp-like waist which I was not a fan of.

As mentioned, I did find that once I got Piggy to the foam phase I had to tweak the pattern a bit to remove some unnecessary darts/seams. Frankly I think there's a lotta polish that could be done to really perfect these patterns, but I don't think I have the patience to do that.

This is the V1 Piggy head, one of the fixes that I did was to make sure that parts of the face that needed a crisp edge (the lower lip, cheeks), were glued on at an angle. V1 the foam pieces were glued together flat edge to flat edge, and it (surprise) flattened out the face.

Oh, and another thing I had to redo... yeah don't use permanent marker to trace your foam pieces (Or if you do, be better about cutting off the drawn lines than I was). Turns out the fleece I got is a tad bit sheer, so you could see the drawn lines underneath it. So I ended up having to re-make the legs/feet, this time using a disappearing ink pen to trace the pieces. I'm planning on painting over the hard EVA foam pieces and then covering them with white fabric, so that should hopefully hide the permanent marker on those pieces (I really don't wanna recut foam if I can help it, I wanna move onto the fun parts of making Piggy as soon as I can).

And that's where I'm at! I've got a bit of work I wanna do on the body before I get to covering Piggy with fleece, but hopefully December will be a productive month.

 

[division 6]

Careful with the sharpie.
They have oils that will bleed through things

I've seen examples of it on the modeling forums.

 

[KOMakesThings]

Careful with the sharpie.
They have oils that will bleed through things

I've seen examples of it on the modeling forums.

Yeah I am a tad worried about that, but I'm also really hoping to avoid cutting out the torso/hip pieces again because they were a pain to glue and heat shape due to their thickness. I did try and wipe them off with rubbing alcohol, but the contact cement has basically sealed the ink in along the seams.

So my hope is that if I maybe mix some white paint with mod podge to seal/cover up any remaining ink, then cover the torso/hips with white fabric, hopefully that'll render them invisible/stop any seepage. I guess time will tell if I come to regret not just recutting that foam.

 

[division 6]

Hope it works out.

 

[bk85]

KOMakesThings Your progress is phenomenal so far, I love this build! It will be so great to see your completed Piggy side by side with your Kermit.

For future reference- one trick that I do is gluing up the foam so that the sharpie lines are in the interior rather than the exterior. I haven't yet ventured into complex foam patterning though, so not sure if that trick works as patterns get more complicated.

 

[KOMakesThings]

KOMakesThings Your progress is phenomenal so far, I love this build! It will be so great to see your completed Piggy side by side with your Kermit.

For future reference- one trick that I do is gluing up the foam so that the sharpie lines are in the interior rather than the exterior. I haven't yet ventured into complex foam patterning though, so not sure if that trick works as patterns get more complicated.

Thank you! There were a few spots on my Piggy where I glued the foam together at an angle so I would've had to account for that prior to reversing it, but I'll try using that trick in the future.

I can't wait until I can do a photoshoot with my Kermit and Piggy together, though I might rebuild my Kermit first. I still really want to try out your pattern for his head, and I'm currently debating upgrading from the Frog Nylafleece to the Frog Fuzzelle for him.

Speaking of Nylafleece, here's some Piggy build updates! I had ordered some Pink Champagne Nylafleece from Puppet Pelts, from the pic on the website I thought it was gonna be the perfect colour for Piggy... unfortunately the fleece leans much more towards the "Pink" than it does the "Champagne". That's on me for not having ordered a sample first. I ended up tinting the fleece a bit with some Rit Dye in the colour "Tan", which was admittedly a pain in the butt because I was not prepared with a large enough pot to dye all the fleece at once. I did each yardage separate, and had a few goofs here and there but thankfully my bad habit of overestimating how much fabric I need saved the day. Even with my goofs I managed to correctly dye 2 yards of the fabric, which seems like it'll be plenty for Piggy.

Here's an attempt to compare the original fleece colour (left) with the dyed version (Right), though FYI I had to try and colour correct this photo after the fact because I was having a real pain trying to battle the poor lighting in my craft room. I only noticed after dying the rest of the fleece that my bathroom has way better lighting, argh! So this photo isn't 100% accurate to the actual colours, but they should give you an idea of what I started with and where I ended up.

I jumped right into sewing up Piggy's legs, I was able to stretch the fleece enough that I have one long seam down the back of each leg, and a circular seam under her toes (I'll snap a pic of that tomorrow, forgot to do so tonight before I lost the light in my room again).

I am so dang pleased with the shape of these legs... photos don't do it justice I think. Kermit once described Piggy as having "Sturdy legs", I hope Kermit would approve of what I've come up with here!

Other than starting the sewing, I also putzed around with Piggy's nose a bit. Did a bit of testing on how to get some nice shape to the nostrils, and I think I've got a decent approach figured out. I'll make a note to take some more pics of that tomorrow as well!

 

[KOMakesThings]

More progress on Piggy! First up, some homework I had from last time (e.g., pictures I neglected to take).

First up, here's a shot of the seam on Piggy's legs. I described this round seam on the bottom of the toes, but it's a little hard to picture by description alone. So on each leg there's one seam going up the back of the leg/foot, and then this small round shape under the toes.

By the by, I haven't fluffed up any of the seams in any of these pictures, I figure I'll do all of that in one go once Piggy's fully fleeced. All the seams were sewn up referencing the video asavage posted on his Youtube channel about how the Henson stitch is sewn. I'll link the video here for those who haven't seen it yet:

"Adam Savage Learns the Infamous "Henson Stitch!" (In Support of @PuppetNerd)" - Tested Youtube Channel"Adam Savage Learns the Infamous "Henson Stitch!" (In Support of @PuppetNerd)" - Tested Youtube Channel

And then here's the interior of Piggy's nose... this is the demo version I made to test out how to get a bit more definition to the nostrils, and a bit more of a swoop to the nose. What I landed on was using a bit of EVA foam in the snout. The foam on the front of her nose will have slits cut in them for the nostrils, which are then glued into the holes cut into the EVA foam. And then I'll use a bit more glue on the inside of the nose to glue the top of the nose to the EVA foam insert, which is what makes the little swoop shape. It's a little rough looking here, I'll do a cleaner job of this on the final nose.

When it comes time to put the fleece on the nose I think I'm gonna sew the fleece through the nostril shape, securing it on the other side of the foam insert with some buttons. Kinda like what you do when adding buttons to a couch. That's my working theory anyways, it might change once I actually get to fleecing the nose.

Onto the other updates! I'm working on Piggy from the ground up, procrastinating fleecing her head because it feels very intimidating. Piggy's hips and torso are made from EVA foam, so they're a lot stiffer than her legs. I ended up gluing some bias tape on the inside of the hips and torso to facilitate sewing the fleece to the foam... I'm trying to future proof my Piggy a bit, and avoid gluing fleece to foam where possible. That way when/if the foam starts to degrade I can cleanly remove the fleece from the foam and hopefully be able to reuse it for the new version of Piggy.

I sewed down the bias tape so that it was basically just one long strip of double thick fabric, then glued it in with some contact cement. I didn't do the cleanest job at this and was a little worried about the tension of the taught fleece ripping the glue out, but it seems to be holding up alright. I find curved needles really awkward to sew with, but it was definitely necessary for sewing these edges down (Especially in the armholes in the torso).

For Piggy's torso I decided I wanted to shape her chest a bit more, so I added some bra inserts prior to adding the fleece. Bonus, this also helped cover up my kinda messy glue job on these seams.

(Also division 6, you'll be pleased to know I did eventually realise it would be better to just remake the torso/hip pieces to get rid of the sharpie lines. It was a pain in the butt to have to recut, reshape, and reglue all those fiddly foam pieces, but it was the right move to make).

I'm now at the stage where I feel like I'm violating Piggy's privacy by posting these pics? But it wouldn't be very helpful for a build thread to censor her, so here she is in all her glory.

That's where I'm currently at, we'll see if I feel brave enough to fleece Piggy's head, or if I'll procrastinate further by making her arms.

 

[bk85]

Incredible!

 

[KOMakesThings]

I was hoping to blast through the last of the fleecing with Piggy over Christmas break, but I didn't quite manage it for reasons I'll get into at the end. But here's a big ol' update to get up to speed.

First up, I did indeed procrastinate working on Piggy's head. I decided to sew her pearl necklace on... I just strung a bunch of pearl beads onto some embroidery thread, then sewed between each bead to attach the necklace to Piggy's torso. After knotting the necklace I was able to hide the tails of the knot by threading them through nearby beads, so the necklace is a seamless string of pearls.

For Piggy's arms I ended up cutting the fleece into two pieces, an upper and lower half. I had made a foam version of Piggy's arms for my mock up, and that turned out very handy for sewing the fleece because I could use it as a form to sew around. I've been finding it easier to hide the seams of the fleece by sewing inside out, so that's what I did for the arms... sew the upper and lower half together, then sew up the long vertical seam. Thanks to the stretch of the fleece, once I was done sewing I could just carefully peel the fleece off the foam form.

This is a pic from before I finished up all the sewing of the arms, but to stuff my arms I used cotton quilt batting wrapped around cores of foam dowel I got from Michaels (With a bit of extra cotton stuffing at the wrist and elbows to pad them out a bit). I like the quilt batting because I find that it's very easy with the cotton stuffing to end up with lumps and bumps under the surface of the felt, the quilt batting helps the surface even out. And I like using foam dowels to give the arms of my puppets a bit more structure, like a skeleton.

Piggy's hands I made by stacking a few layers of 1 inch foam together, then cutting it down to shape (Cutting the fingers thinner than I needed since the fleece will add bulk). Inbetween the two main layers of foam is a little cotton pocket for the arm rod, and wire twisted to shape so the fingers are poseable. I wish I had made the wire a bit longer on each of the fingers, my final hands come up a little short there. The wire of the thumb is pulled through a hole in the thumb, and sandwiched between more foam on the other side of the hand.

I was hoping that I could maybe cheat a bit and use a machine to sew the fleece for the hands... since Piggy will be wearing gloves, this seam doesn't need to be super pretty anyways, right? Well, I think I need more practice sewing stretch materials, because the stitch was very visible once I popped the foam hand in the fleece glove, and hidden or not that annoyed me. So I did spend a good few hours going over the machine stitch by hand. Then I just had to sew the hand to the arm, and the hands were done.

To sew the arm to the shoulder I ended up using a large gathering stitch to pull the very top of the arm together... same idea as sewing a sleeve to a shirt, there's a bit of ease in the top of the shoulder that you need to gather before sewing it in place. You can see the gathering stitch in the below pic, I removed it once I got the shoulders sewn in, then made sure there was enough stuffing inside Piggy's torso to puff the shoulders out.
I'll confess: the shoulder bunches up a bit when Piggy's arms are raised, I think maybe there's too much fabric in this area thanks to the gathering? As much as I like her nice rounded shoulders, I might go over this area with another round of sewing to try and take in some of the fabric, and see if that makes a noticeable difference.

Before fully committing with fleecing Piggy's head I procrastinated further by making this little EVA foam structure that kinda acts as her skull. It's shaped to avoid her nose area, and cups the underside of her lower lip. I was a bit concerned whether or not the upholstery foam alone would hold up to the weight of a wig, so this will hopefully help distribute the weight a bit.

I did give sewing up Piggy's head a try... only to realise afterwards that it wasn't sitting right. I also realised I should probably make the mouth plate and glue that in before sewing the fleece on to the head, which would probably help the fit issues... which made me realise that the red suede I had leftover from my Kermit replica wasn't totally accurate to Piggy. As far as I can tell, Piggy's mouth is more of a maroon colour.

I ordered some different suede hoping it would arrive while I was still on Christmas vacation, but alas the Canadian postal system was still trying to catch up from the recent strike. Though that turned out to be a moot point as the original suede I ordered turned out to be pretty different from the listing photos (way too dark, more purple than maroon). Thankfully the seller was extremely helpful and offered to colour match the suede for me, so I ended up sharing the above pic of Piggy with her and she dug through her stock to give me a few options. I actually don't know if there's an official name for these two swatches of suede she gave me, they are oddly shaped so I assume they were scraps that she had left over.

Left is the felt I'm gonna use for Piggy's tongue, I'm currently leaning towards the slightly lighter suede for the mouth plate? But if anyone has any strong feelings one way or the other, feel free to chip in. I'm hoping to get the mouth plate built this weekend, and then I can hopefully finish fleecing Piggy's head.