Alice in Wonderland has been depicted over and over for decades, and it is for that reason that I'm not touching on it too heavily outside of research - I don't want to redo a book which has been done so many times before. However, it's a great source of reference for different interpretations of the Dodo character.
Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations.
Alice in Wonderland has such popularity that even Disney have created an interpretation, including this plump, jolly and somewhat professor-like bird. It's interesting to see the different ways people have interpreted the colouring and proportion of the Dodo, as there are so many illustrations and examples of Wonderland.
Alexander Dodon's Russian Dodos.
Björk and Eriksson's Japanese Alice in Wonderland.
Peter Ferguson's Alice.
As I have a large collection of images of further Alice interpretations, you can see more under the cut;
Ice Age illogically has Dodos in it's story - the Dodo was not an evolved species during the Ice Age era, and neither were humans. However, this is the cartoon world - and the 3D models for the Dodos in this film are very pleasing to the eye. They have very chunky bodies which contrast with their skinny legs, and in the same vein the dramatic changes of thickness in the beak add a lot of visual interest to the character.
It is, however, a little disappointing that as usual, the Dodo is portrayed as a clueless beast which drives itself to extinction through it's own poor decisions. Hopefully as you've read by now, this wasn't the case at all, and it's frustrating to see these kind, intelligent birds portrayed over and over as guffawing hooligans too blind to see their own shortcomings. My Dodo will be the pinnacle of intelligent, witty and cheeky, interacting with the public to hopefully encourage them to reconsider how such a smart hunk of feathers could have become extinct, and how human actions are causing animals to become extinct all over the world.
Upon putting the two sides of the sculpture together, it became very clear that I needed to sculpt the head as a whole to get a good impression of the dimensions and shapes of the head. I cut out two polystyrene cradles on the bandsaw to hold sections of the sculpt steady, and used two large clips to keep the top sides of the MDF plates together.
As you can see, the head is far, far too narrow at the top and the eyes are too far around the sides of the head. It wasn't very possible to tell this from the two sides lying flat on the table, so I'm glad I put the pieces together before I'd gone any further in the sculpting process.
As you can see below, I have repositioned the eyes to better match my concept art and anatomical considerations. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong with the sculpt before but now it is obvious that the head proportions were all wrong! I am trying to work in a cheeky, friendly expression to the face without it appearing too cartoonish, and this seems to be going well so far. I intent to add a lot of details like wrinkling; particularly around the mouth to hide the seam where the bottom jaw will hinge.
Today I started laying up and sculpting the Dodo's head. It is being sculpted and vacuum formed in two halves to ensure the jaw fits together nicely, and with the MDF form as a base the two halves of the head should be able to be jointed together with a strong glue and internal reinforcement well.
It's proving somewhat difficult to envision what the two halves of the head will look like as a whole, so I plan to create some kind of polystyrene cradle and bulldog-clip the two sides of the MDF bases together so I can see what it looks like as a complete head.
This is a very large project that has to be considered in many different sections before pulling them all together. I've mentally separated these into:
Head - sculpting, casting, moving jaw mechanism, painting, finishing and attaching.
Neck - mechanism, covering, upholstering with fur and airbrushing.
Body - sculpting in scale, patterning, scaling up, cutting from foam, assembling, creating PVC support frame, attaching to base, upholstering with fur, detailing with feathers and airbrushing.
Feet - carving from upholstery foam, patterning, upholstering, attaching soles.
Tail - cutting, attaching to base, airbrushing.
Saddle - carving from upholstery foam, coating in fibreglass for rigidity, attaching neck plate, attaching harness, attaching to support frame, painting and detailing, attaching saddlebags and stirrups.
Bridle - assembling fabric straps and fixtures, attaching to head, bending and shaping hollow rigid reins, running mouth operation cable inside, attaching handle lever to end, covering with fabric, detailing.
My main source of concern is to do with the mechanical parts of the project, as I have the least experience in these areas. Whereas the moving mouth mechanism has been created, I won't feel like it's fully been successful until it's been assembled inside of the puppet's head with the cable running inside the rein. This concern applies even more to the neck mechanism - it is a complex, jointed system which must be attached to the body comfortably and stably without having pressure points, and must be able to tape the weight of the head and the pressure of the lower jaw's cable system.
Other elements of the puppet - such as making the body - are large, but are processes I'm more confident in. It will be expensive and challenging to draw different textures on the body together and add feathers, but it feels achievable because it's more of an art-orientated process as opposed to a mechanical/engineering-orientated one.
Notes and sketches on the assembly and design of the puppet.
Once this project starts making some solid, visible progress hopefully my nerves will be settled; the puppet is fully designed externally with technical drawings, fabric swatches, colour plans and many sketches pondering the complexities of the mechanic, but nothing feels real until it can be held in one's hands. Watch this space, big bird is coming...!
It was with great surprise that I found an example of a large, 'ride on' type Dodo puppet in existence already - this pair of purple birds were created by Andrew Kim of Thingumajig Theatre. They represent a more fantasy-orientated style that I was initially considering, with a Morris costume-style covering of fabric rags in a fantastical purple. Whilst this gives the birds a lovely movement, it makes them a step further away from realism than I'm hoping for. The birds are very well articulated through the necks with a mechanism I can't quite put my finger on, and with no clear work in progress or internal workings photos it will remain a mystery, even after hours of digging around on the internet!
These are the only photos I can find of the bird not in action. Whilst the first photo has very little to offer in the way of mechanical clues, the second suggests that the heads are mounted on a simple pole, with a pivot point at the top of the head. This gives surprisingly eloquent movement to the puppets, and makes them look convincingly lively, even if their head movement is only side to side and rocking up and down - the whole bird must move up and down by the movement of the wearer's body, suggesting the pole is attached rigidly at an angle to the wearer. The actors have what looks to be a camera strap in each hand controlling the swing of the head. This free-moving hinge does give a convincing amount of movement to each puppet, which is reassuring backup in the event of my project's neck not going to plan - any movement I can get will be great if just having a free-swinging head on a rigid neck looks so good.
I find the paint job on this birds a little bit convoluted and lacking reason - do the birds have facial tattoos? Have they had their faces painted? The swirly black decorations feel a bit like an afterthought in the design process; whilst the yellow and purple clash pleasantly as opposites on the colour wheel, the pale peach-brown of the birds heads feels a little washed out, especially against the bold yellow of their feet; if the dodo's face is fleshy, it would be logical for it to be a very similar colour to the flesh of the feet. Most of Kim's faces seem to be a sturdy paper-maché over a clay sculpt, which seems to work well but isn't a method I would use when the vacuum former is available as a much quicker, stronger and more waterproof alternative.
From what I can gather, the actors control the heads with camera straps because the ends of each strap are attached to the head either side of the pivot point. This allows the puppeteer to make the head nod or dip with a good amount of control, as well as giving a good amount of control over the left-right swing. This ingenuity is nothing less than I'd expect from Thingumajig Theatre, as an established and well-known company. I do feel, however, that the straps for controlling the heads could have been made into a design feature; like other parts of the puppet's design, they seem a bit arbitrary - when the puppeteer's hands are raised high enough that they are clearly and visibly controlling the head, why not make it seem like the dodo is wearing some form of riding equipment that requires straps? Why do the riders have long tail coats covering the rear of the bird, but no legs? The puppeteer seems to sit somewhat embedded into the dodo's body instead of riding it, breaking the illusion that the dodo and rider are two separate entities; whilst the viewer is of course primarily concerned with the overall impression of the puppet and fixates on the face, the eyes will undoubtedly drift to the other details of the puppet in time, and it is here that the design slips up.
