Yoda puppet

Has any one ever attempted to make an actual fully movable puppet of Yoda like what was used in ESB? And on a side note, what race is Yoda?

 

Yes, and Yoda's species is unknown.

 

is there a tutorial on how to make one of those puppets?

 

I'd say no. That's more of a 'years of experience' thing.

EDIT: Come to think of it, why do people always try and grab for a tutorial rather than try and puzzling things out on their own?

 

I'm not sure offhand. I'll look into it for you though. Its very possible but it isn't cheap due to the mechanics. I've never constructed one myself, but I do remember seeing them done before. Once or twice.

 

I was just more or less interested in how it worked. I mean, muppets I can easily figure out since theirs either a guy with his hand inside the head and two thin wires for the arms like Kermit, or a hand in the head and the other arm and a volunteer for the other like Cookie Monster. But Yoda confused me as me a friend and I watched ESB yesterday. I mean, for the longest time when I was a kid I thought it was actually real. (I was gulible at a young age.)

Mainly I was wanting the information for later in case I wanted to attempt to make a fanfiction I'm working on into a film, but thats much later.

 

The more detailed movements are accomplished by various types of motors and actuators. There are two commonly used methods including pneumatic which uses compressed air and pressure through gases to work the motors of the puppet, and the more traditional hydraulic system that uses liquid or oil.

Pneumatic systems cost a great deal less and are generally easier to implement than liquid or hydraulic systems, and are also quite acceptable in various areas of animatronic design when the more accurate positioning and velocity of hydraulic systems isn't absolutely vital.

Its generally a good idea to use both for different areas of your design. The best thing in a situation like this is, as Funk pointed out, experience.


-Bane

 

Wire systems are fairly common as well and would probably work wonderfully for things like Yoda's eyebrows and his ears. Also, price and difficulty wise, they're much easier, though they can be difficult to implement at times and are more prone to breaking.

 

maybe you could do minatures, like modify one of those Talking Yoda puppets or something...

 

I posted a bunch of links to good Yoda info in my blog on the weekend. You may want to check those out (I write and post links related to puppetry in film and video daily at http://puppetvision.blogspot.com for anyone interested).

Yoda's mechanisms on the original puppet were very simple cable controls. Animatronics at that time was in its infancy, even radio control was uncommon until the early/mid-80s. Pneumatic and hydraulic systems are almost never used for puppets because you usually go with the most simple mechanism possible unless you have something big or a lot of weight to move (some large puppets like the Alien Queen and the T-Rex in Jurassic Park use hydraulics and pneumatics). The most common method of controlling animatronic puppets is via simple cable controls or radio controlled servos.

Radio control works great and you can buy kits for animatronic off the shelf but it's sometimes tricky to work with on a set. In my experience cable controls are very reliable if they are properly designed and cared for unless you have to put a puppet through a tremendous amount of abuse.

If it helps, the ideal performing situation for a character like Yoda is to have one puppeteer working the head/body/mouth and one arm, while another puppeteer assists with the other arm and third (and sometimes fourth, fifth or even sixth) works the cable or radio controls for the rest of the puppet. The Creature Shop - which in it's earliest days consulted on the design of Yoda - uses now uses the Henson Performance Control System to allow one puppeteer complete control over all of a puppet's expressions via a computerized glove and joy stick (too bad it's patented and it's inner workings are kept hush-hush!).

You don't need to load up the puppet with tons of fancy controls though, nothing works as well as the human hand. A lot of what Frank Oz did with his characters like Yoda, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, etc. was accomplished simply by using his hand and because he's arguably the world's greatest living puppeteer. Give someone else Yoda and it won't look half as good.

I've written a guide to puppet building resources that mainly deals with foam Muppet-style puppets but also includes books, videos and more links that are extremely helpful when getting started in animatronics. There's also lots of people on the web who have made or attempted to make their own Yoda if you do a little googling.

Animatronics isn't my specific area of expertise in puppetry but I've worked with just about every type of puppet imaginable on a professional level so if I can offer any more help let me know.

 

Try asking the guys behind Pink Five, they had a very realistic Yoda puppet.

 

Trey is a professional puppeteer in Hollywood, with professional puppeteer friends in Hollywood who helped him out on their off-days, making the Yoda for Pink Five Strikes Back. (And a lot of new stuff in Return of Pink Five. Everyone donate. Do it.)

So...yeah, that's an interesting circumstance.

Maybe do what Fenn did in Jedi hunter, with a slight twist. He just used a nonmobile model, IIRC...maybe use a tool like WinMorph to give th impression that the lips are moving. Notice in the movies, his lips don't ever move that much.

 

heres some more info on yoda

http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/yoda/

 

Didn't the Character Shop in LA have something to do with the Pink 5 films? They do great stuff with animatronics.

The Salacious Crumb in the Return of Pink Five trailer/preview looks pretty spiffy too.

 

For the record, The Character Shop didn't have anything to do with our Yoda, even though Rick's a buddy of mine from way back and he certainly could have done it.

But it just worked out that Yoda was done at the Chiodo Brothers' shop while they were building all the puppets for Team America. I had several friends working there, and they built Yoda after-hours and just sorta snuck him into the pipeline along with all the other molds and foam latex baking sessions, etc. (The Chiodos knew about it - it's not like we were getting away with anything.)

Salacious C. was an existing puppet that we borrowed from his owner, so he was a lot easier.

 

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Someone had told me it was done at the Character Shop. I love the Chido's stuff, it's nice to see them getting a little more well-deserved attention since Team America came out.

Great work with the Pink Five trilogy btw. I was showing it to some people today who were unaware of the whole fan film phenomenon and they really loved it.

 

trying to do it on your own when there are tutorials that teach you the exact thing you are looking for is just a waste of time and money

 

is there a tutorial on how to make one of those puppets?

I doubt it but if you talk to Chris Cdebaca at No Face Studios he could prolly make an excellent Yoda puppet but it could cost a pretty penny. Chris is the guy who made the Freddy costume for Freddy vs Ghostbusters and Slimer for the same movie.

 

Cool. Thanks for all the replies and informative web sites. Whenever I have more time I'll look at them and gather the info for future use, posably... not sure if thats how you spell it... The whole reason I was curious about the puppet is because I'm writting a fan-fiction that I'm entertaining the idea of making a film out of in the future, but thats a ways off. Its not Yoda, but one of his race that would be used.

 

Didnt PinkFive Strikes Back have a puppet?

 

Read teh thread before you post

 

Did some digging and found a link to page made by someone who attempted this - http://www.f1m.com/ask/Scale/yoda/yoda.htm

There are others out there.