# Marionette animation



## shmork (Jul 30, 2015)

I recently came into possession of some of my grandfather's marionette collection. He was a prominent puppeteer in the LA area during the 1930s and 1940s. Knowing how much I love Halloween, my mom gave me his puppets from a monster-themed show he did. These include a skeleton whose head flies off, a ghost, Frankenstein's monster, a ghoul, and a shack facade to use as a backdrop. I love these and want to use them for our Halloween display but don't quite know how to put them to the best use. Ideally, I would love to animate them so at least one moves on its own. That said, every piece was created and built by my grandfather and several are at least 40 to 50 years old. Does anyone have any ideas on how to animate a marionette without damaging it?


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

One idea is to use crank arm(s) to control the strings the puppet hangs from. That way you are animating the puppet the way it was designed, no need to modify the puppet. A basic FCG rig would work. SLAM has an active thread in which he uses 2 crank arms. I have used several varieties of crank arms to animate ghosts, you can find them on my blog. Good luck, please let us know what you come up with.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Here's SLAM's thread that HJ was referring to:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=41541


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

You could set up a cam system for different strings. Put them on one axle to synchronize. Would be kind of complex though. Some variant of a FCG would be easier.

I would think any system that manipulates the existing string attachment points would be pretty safe, if you don't pull the puppet too taut. You could use rods instead of strings and manipulate them from below or behind.


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## toozie21 (Aug 23, 2012)

I had wanted to do something similar for a Christmas display, but couldn't really ever mentally come up with an idea I liked. SLAM's marionette looks pretty good (not sure of you wanted more range of motion in your animation than that). I had been trying to think of how to control them with servos, but that would require a bunch of servos per doll, and then the ability to "record" set animations. Totally doable by many of the people on here, sadly I don't have the time to make up for my lack of skills to accomplish the feat. SLAM's idea is pretty good though!

Got any pics of your marionettes?


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## shmork (Jul 30, 2015)

Thanks everybody for the great ideas! This sounds like it is going to be a fun project.


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

In reality and FCG is a type of marionette, so using something of that nature would be easy and should work.


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

You don't have to limit yourself to 3 strings per crank arm, which is typical for an FCG. For example, whatch the video of the ghost on this thread. There are 8 strings running on a single crank arm, that will give you an idea of what I am talking about.


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## BTH (Jul 2, 2006)

Like this!


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## scubaspook (Dec 16, 2010)

Here is a puppet of sort that someone did this year.


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