Dragon Puppet for Shrek the Musical
By David O’Gara of O-Studios
My challenge was to create an over-sized dragon puppet for the local theater company’s production of Shrek the Musical. The theater company performing the musical was The Theater Group of Millis, Millis MA. My primary material used was the extruded polystyrene foam boards, L200 foam, and PVC pipes. My primary tool was the Hot Wire Foam Factory Sculpting Tool.
For the head I started by gluing the foam boards together, and drawing orthographic views on the top and sides, then roughing it out to get the basic shape, and then gradually carving and sanding it into shape.
I used my Hot Wire Sculpting Tool to cut hundreds of individual foam scales which gave the surface a nice texture, and a uniform look.
I based the concept of the dragon tail on one of those toy segmented wooden snakes, just a large foam version. After carving out the tail, I sliced it into sections, then glued it back together with canvas in the center. I used the same method for the dragon’s neck, shown in the photos below.
The puppet has colored LED lights in her eyes, and a moving mouth which I control from within the puppet.
