dRAGON PUPPET
Dragon was created for RHSPA’s production of Shrek The Musical! She is a GIANT dragon head with a moving jaw and color-changing LED eyes.
She contains a PVC frame layered with EVA and upholstery foam, and took around 700+ hours between four people to make, with me leading the production.
She now is rented out to different high schools to be used in performances of Shrek The Musical! My favorite part about her is that she is able to live on in different productions, and can be a part of so many shows.
The process began with concept art, and then creating a clay model of how the head would look. I used the clay model to draft a pattern for the larger head after figuring out how she would read on stage!
The directors of the show wanted a non-traditional dragon, but she still had to look friendly. (which was hard for me- I normally like more monstrous creatures!)
We started building directly off of the PVC frame provided by the Technical Director by creating a shell from the EVA foam that wrapped around the PVC.
From there I followed the usual process of building up the upholstery foam to capture the forms in the face.
After the foam work was done, we started adding the other elements, such as the horns, teeth, tongue, eyes, and eyelids.
Before painting we based her out in fabric, then spray painted it black.
The painting process is always the most fun for me. It seems to instill life into the character!
To paint Dragon, (whom at this point in the process, we named Persephone), I used a palette inspired by the dragon from the Shrek film. She had to have her signature red lips and eye lashes as well! (For the eye lashes, we ended up going with car eyelashes- they were the perfect size!)
Her golden highlights really shined on stage. They were a fun detail to add to each scale.
After completion, I realized just how much I learned from this project. I had never created something quite this LARGE, and the learning curve was frustrating- working out any problems early on when creating something so big is vital to the project as a whole.
Dragon will always be such an amazing experience and was a joy to create. Seeing the expressions on kid’s faces when they saw her come onto the stage is something I will absolutely never forget.