wookie height

hi there,
making a wookie costume and i'm kida short so i was wondering what you think the tallest stilts i could use wihtout stupid would be?

 

To be in proportion, you could build up the souls of the feet and Wookie heads are fairly tall. And then (unless you are trying to be one of the "known" Wookies) you could be a teenage Wookie.

 

I believe shoes have "soles" and not "souls." Unless it's some kind of magical reincarnated shoe.

 

Well according to the database, wookiees are around 8 feet tall, but I made my stilts to only be 7 feet tall (i am 6'3" btw so it was only 9 inches) but I wouldn't suggest making your own stilts unless you are as smart as me (lol) but i'm still not finished, I have only finished my wookiee jedi (i'll post my pictures here in a few minutes)

 

Hey! I made stilts! What are you insinuating??

Mine you have to keep moving to stay up. Like a unicycle. I would not suggest making them the way I did. lol

 

with mine i don't, i just have to walk really slowly becuase of how heavy they are... I made them with some old LUGZ boots and some wood... comfortable... and they won't break my ankle when I fall, lol, but like i said, they are really heavy so I have to walk kinda slow.

 

Mine are not the model of comfort, but they're also made of made of wood. The "feet" are just the end of a 2x2 pine pole. lol

Are they like drywall stilts or what?

 

for mine I just used some carpet glue and nails to nail wood together (of course make the bottom pieces longer and wider for stability) and then do the same for the boots, and then put a gel insole into the bot so that I don't have the feel the nail and so that it makes it that much more comfortable.

Took a bit of work to make, but stable, comfortable, and safe (except for the long fall downwards, haha), but like I said, they are heavy and I have to walk slow.

AND I have to be carefull because when I kick something or someone, i'm most likely to break it... or their bones, lol. but safe for me , just gotta watch where i'm going.

 

KnightShade used 14" drywaller's stilts.
Here's a pic of him and Peter Mayhew.

~Doc_Bev

 

While building my costume - I decided that I was best to go with DryWall stilts.

Largely - this decision was for safety reasons. I did A LOT of reading of various clown sites - and short of some very expensive stilts, many of them were using DuraStilts.

One of the factors in my decision was also the weight of the stilt. I wanted them to be as light as possible.

So far as how big of a stilt one can go with - I would recommend as small as possible.
I went with 14 inches (I have yet to see smaller drywall stilts).
Even so - If someone is looking they can tell that my legs and arms are out of proportion with each other.

It is true that the head adds some height as well. I am 6 foot tall. The stilts add 14 inches - and the mask adds another 3-4 inches. Overall that brings me to 7'6". Yes that may be short for a wookiee, but most people don't seem to notice

 

If you're 6'3", why don't you just slap on a pair of big platform shoes...if you can crank yourself up to 6'8" or 6'9", I'm sure you'll be tall enough that people wouldn't notice too much, you might find the odd giant that's taller than you which would suck, but to the average person, they can't tell too much of a difference between 6'9" and 7 feet....and you wouldn't have as hard a time walking around...Just a thought. Plus if you can make yourself 6'9" in the platforms, with the wookie head, and frizzy hair, you will be 7 feet tall.
Peter Mayhew is over 7 feet tall, but he's not 8 feet tall, lol, so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Yeah but I read that Stuart Freeborn put 4" lifts in the boots and the mask added another 4", which put Chewie at just about 8'.

I made a cheap-o Chewie costume for laughs (there's pics at the site in my sig) with 16" stilts, but also made 12" arm extentions. I bought 2 of those cheap robot hands from KayBee, made them a little longer, and switched the fingers around on one of them to make other hand. Yeah, it's kind of weird that the knees and elbows are so high in proportion, but I think it looks a bit more normal than having short arms. So you could try doing that!