Hola mis amigos! Another day, another Muppet. When I gave my mom and bother their replica Kermit and Beaker over the holidays, my sister mentioned that she wanted a Pepe. Her birthday is coming up so I've been working to create a replica for her. I'm getting into crunch time as I only have about 2 weeks left and still have quite a lot to figure out! I just hope I can make it all come together in time.
Pepe so far has been a chance to learn how to build mechanisms into a puppet. Pepe has 2 that I know of. One to make his mouth open and close, and another to tilt his head up and down. Unfortunately there are not many training materials available online about making and installing various puppet mechanisms. I have tried my best to use what few instructional videos and write ups that I could and have cobbled together something that works.
My first step was figuring out sizing. Luckily a Pepe went up for auction a few years ago with provided some great reference images and measurements. I also found some press junket interviews where Kermit and Pepe were side by side. Since I am fairly confident that Kermit uses 38mm eyes, I was able to use this to extrapolate that Pepe has 1 inch eyes. The amazing thing is that I, unknowingly at the time, made an acquaintance with the person that refurbished the auctioned Pepe and he recently confirmed that 1 inch is the correct measurement. Another very helpful person gave a second confirmation as he kindly shared a picture of a real Pepe with a ruler under the eyes. Good, great, phenomenal- at least I know the scale I need to work with.
My next step was to find a profile, and head on pictures of Pepe. The thing is that every puppet is hand built so there will be minor variations. I wanted to make sure that I was using different perspectives of the same puppet to minimize variance in things lining up. Pepe has a plastic under-skull, and that would need to be modeled. I wound up going with screen caps of the press junket videos, pulled those into illustrator and began tracing the head shape, trying to account for the thickness of the fur.
I pulled my measurements into Fusion 360 and started modeling. This took me quite a long time as I had no idea how to account for the mechanisms. I did what any self respecting person who is in over their head does- I went on a shopping spree at McMaster-Carr and hoped that whatever random hardware I bought would help me solve the problem. I bought it all, springs, hinges, bearings, plastic and metal rods, foam tubing, screws, threaded inserts, etc. I only ended up using a couple of the items but having those tangible objects and playing with them helped me cement a possible path forward. Am I happy with the resulting mechanics? Yes. What did it cost? Everything.
I next did what I always do, which was post my progress online for that sweet sweet validation of complete strangers. I posted the following images and lo and behold, my previously aforementioned acquaintance was kind enough to post orthographic pictures of scans that he took of Pepe's under-skull. SCORE! I was pretty close and I'm sure the puppet would have been perfectly fine but now I had a chance to start over. The real Pepe's head form has some subtle curves that my sketch/extrusion/fileted model didn't have. I changed things up and used an unfamiliar part of Fusion to create a base form that was then manipulated to create the form I wanted. This took even more time because I was new to this as well. Once again longing for affirmation, I posted the next set of pictures and received some heartwarming feedback. Great, the head is figured out, now just everything else to figure out.
Attempt 1 (note the square hole in the top of the head is for inserting a piece of foam to better help give something for the hair feathers to stick in and adhere to)
Attempt 2 (before adding in the features/mechanics of build 1):
After the above screenshots were taken I added the old mechanics to the new head, and made a few minor adjustments. Now to print it out and test out the mechanics. In the 3d models, the eyes are just there for reference. I will be using plastic spheres for the eyes. Here's the prototype head, and it's thankfully working as expected.
And a video
Enough procrastinating, time to get back to work! I will post about the next phase soon.
Pepe so far has been a chance to learn how to build mechanisms into a puppet. Pepe has 2 that I know of. One to make his mouth open and close, and another to tilt his head up and down. Unfortunately there are not many training materials available online about making and installing various puppet mechanisms. I have tried my best to use what few instructional videos and write ups that I could and have cobbled together something that works.
My first step was figuring out sizing. Luckily a Pepe went up for auction a few years ago with provided some great reference images and measurements. I also found some press junket interviews where Kermit and Pepe were side by side. Since I am fairly confident that Kermit uses 38mm eyes, I was able to use this to extrapolate that Pepe has 1 inch eyes. The amazing thing is that I, unknowingly at the time, made an acquaintance with the person that refurbished the auctioned Pepe and he recently confirmed that 1 inch is the correct measurement. Another very helpful person gave a second confirmation as he kindly shared a picture of a real Pepe with a ruler under the eyes. Good, great, phenomenal- at least I know the scale I need to work with.
My next step was to find a profile, and head on pictures of Pepe. The thing is that every puppet is hand built so there will be minor variations. I wanted to make sure that I was using different perspectives of the same puppet to minimize variance in things lining up. Pepe has a plastic under-skull, and that would need to be modeled. I wound up going with screen caps of the press junket videos, pulled those into illustrator and began tracing the head shape, trying to account for the thickness of the fur.
I pulled my measurements into Fusion 360 and started modeling. This took me quite a long time as I had no idea how to account for the mechanisms. I did what any self respecting person who is in over their head does- I went on a shopping spree at McMaster-Carr and hoped that whatever random hardware I bought would help me solve the problem. I bought it all, springs, hinges, bearings, plastic and metal rods, foam tubing, screws, threaded inserts, etc. I only ended up using a couple of the items but having those tangible objects and playing with them helped me cement a possible path forward. Am I happy with the resulting mechanics? Yes. What did it cost? Everything.
I next did what I always do, which was post my progress online for that sweet sweet validation of complete strangers. I posted the following images and lo and behold, my previously aforementioned acquaintance was kind enough to post orthographic pictures of scans that he took of Pepe's under-skull. SCORE! I was pretty close and I'm sure the puppet would have been perfectly fine but now I had a chance to start over. The real Pepe's head form has some subtle curves that my sketch/extrusion/fileted model didn't have. I changed things up and used an unfamiliar part of Fusion to create a base form that was then manipulated to create the form I wanted. This took even more time because I was new to this as well. Once again longing for affirmation, I posted the next set of pictures and received some heartwarming feedback. Great, the head is figured out, now just everything else to figure out.
Attempt 1 (note the square hole in the top of the head is for inserting a piece of foam to better help give something for the hair feathers to stick in and adhere to)
Attempt 2 (before adding in the features/mechanics of build 1):
After the above screenshots were taken I added the old mechanics to the new head, and made a few minor adjustments. Now to print it out and test out the mechanics. In the 3d models, the eyes are just there for reference. I will be using plastic spheres for the eyes. Here's the prototype head, and it's thankfully working as expected.
And a video
Enough procrastinating, time to get back to work! I will post about the next phase soon.
