MacBeth build: the stone witch, day one

So here’s what I did yesterday.

The concept for this build is that each of the three witches has created her corporeal form out of things she’s found in the woods. So one is made of stone, one of sticks and the other of mist. I’m starting with the stone witch because she will be labor intensive and yet at the same time is fairly easy technically.

Michael Schupbach, the designer, did full scale drawings for me so that as I work on designing their internal structure I know how much space I have in which to work. We’ve got front and side views of each character, though for the moment I’m only showing you the stone witch.

Though it’s hard to see in this photo (sorry, no flash) what I do is draw where the puppeteers body needs to be in relationship to the figure. Those are the faint read marks. I make adjustments to the drawings to acomodate that as well as to try to make the puppet at least a little ergonomic.

In this case, I’m running a channel in through the figure so the puppeteer doesn’t have to hold their arm straight out in front of them. It’s still going to be a significant amount of weight, but I’ve tried to go for the strongest position possible considering scale and operation of the figure.

Next is the usual pattern making and cutting of blue foam.

As a side note, I had to travel over to Brooklyn to pick up the foam. The trip there is pretty fast, maybe twenty minutes. The trip back however, included eight foot long sheets of foam, the subway, and wind. It’s times like this that I love New Yorkers, because we’ve all had to carry the horrifically oversized thing on the subway, people tend to be really helpful. I think it’s the only time you see pity.

So I had folks holding doors for me and being generally quite nice all the way.

Then I got off the train and the wind picked up. It was like walking with a parasail. That was seriously unpleasant. By the time I got back to the shop I hated the entire world again.

Here’s the witch’s torso and leg roughed in. Again, I’m concerned about the weight, even with foam this is going to get tiring to hold, so we’ve opted to go for a rigid leg to support the weight. Since the character is supposed to be made of stone, it’s not necessary for her to have naturalistic movement. Normally I’d want that knee to bend but this will be easier.

I should mention that the puppeteers are high school aged girls, so weight and ease of operation are going to be key for the whole build.