Street Entertainment Design
Here is the design for the violinist. Since I had such a interesting character to base my film on, the design of the puppet was mainly just a caricature of the actual violinist. His suit was made more tattier and ragged with his toes poking out the shoe. I took a little from Einstein in the Hair and Chaplin with the suit and the character Geri in the Pixar short "Geri's Game". This final design was enlarged on a photocopier to the desired scale and was then glued to cardboard. It was then used as the template for the construction of the sets and puppets and to practice my camera setups and lighting.
The puppet had a aluminum wire and brass tubing armature. The head had a hollow resin core covered with plasticene. The suit was stiffened fabric and I carved the violin out of balsa wood. The hands had to have that old boney withered look which would have been impossible with plasticene so they were molded in silicone. The puppet took almost three weeks to make.