But in the end everyone loved him!
Special Delivery! You should have seen the faces of the cast and crew when I opened the door! A combination of shock, terror and laughing!
And here's the finished Hound!
AGH!
The I painted the eyes to have that reflected look that animals have when you shine a light in their eyes; and the teeth, gums and mouth are now taking shape.
As you can see, the beast is about 6ft high by about 6ft long. The paint had the advantage of giving it a great look but it did alter the weight slightly.
Then I painted the fur with paint and pva (it had to be as waterproof as possible for the outdoor venues) and then brushed the fur in the direction that I needed.
After a few weeks of frustrating construction, at last I could start to have some fun! I glued on various lengths of fur fabric and gave the beast a snarling expression!
More plastazote was added to the head, neck and front legs and paws and also a bit more foam to the body. I added in a foam mouth with a view to turning that into a snarl!
The head ,neck and jaw were designed to be moved by the operator; I had to try and make the mechanism as light as possible. The eyes are light foam balls from a sports shop.
Various parts of the costume were strengthened with hessian or foam and head and neck construction was started.
After taking advice from a few dog owners in the workshop, I decided to change the stance into a more aggressive attack posture.
I added foam insulation piping to help sketch out the shape of the Hound body. Most of this would be later cut away or replaced by the plastazote.
In late June 2007 I was asked by the Illyria Theatre company
http://www.illyria.uk.com/ to build a large Hound costume/puppet for their summer tour of Hound of the Baskervilles. The Director gave a few descriptions of what he wanted it to look like but the general description was "as big as a horse!" And so I began the creative process by buying a rucksack, various lengths of plastic pipe and large sheets of plastazote and I started to make a skeleton .... As you can see it was very important to start by building the costume so the performer would be as comfortable as possible; hence the rucksack.
But in the end everyone loved him!
Special Delivery! You should have seen the faces of the cast and crew when I opened the door! A combination of shock, terror and laughing!
And here's the finished Hound!
AGH!
The I painted the eyes to have that reflected look that animals have when you shine a light in their eyes; and the teeth, gums and mouth are now taking shape.
As you can see, the beast is about 6ft high by about 6ft long. The paint had the advantage of giving it a great look but it did alter the weight slightly.
Then I painted the fur with paint and pva (it had to be as waterproof as possible for the outdoor venues) and then brushed the fur in the direction that I needed.
After a few weeks of frustrating construction, at last I could start to have some fun! I glued on various lengths of fur fabric and gave the beast a snarling expression! 
More plastazote was added to the head, neck and front legs and paws and also a bit more foam to the body. I added in a foam mouth with a view to turning that into a snarl!
The head ,neck and jaw were designed to be moved by the operator; I had to try and make the mechanism as light as possible. The eyes are light foam balls from a sports shop.
Various parts of the costume were strengthened with hessian or foam and head and neck construction was started. 
After taking advice from a few dog owners in the workshop, I decided to change the stance into a more aggressive attack posture.
I added foam insulation piping to help sketch out the shape of the Hound body. Most of this would be later cut away or replaced by the plastazote.
In late June 2007 I was asked by the Illyria Theatre company http://www.illyria.uk.com/ to build a large Hound costume/puppet for their summer tour of Hound of the Baskervilles. The Director gave a few descriptions of what he wanted it to look like but the general description was "as big as a horse!" And so I began the creative process by buying a rucksack, various lengths of plastic pipe and large sheets of plastazote and I started to make a skeleton .... As you can see it was very important to start by building the costume so the performer would be as comfortable as possible; hence the rucksack. 
