I built a replica/my own take on Audrey II pod 2 for my 2015 Halloween costume. I feel like building an Audrey II is a sort of rite of passage for a puppet fabricator, everyone who builds puppets is bound to build an Audrey II sooner or later. I wanted my Audrey II to lean more on the naturalistic side of things than the cartoony, while still keeping costs reasonable. The build time for this project from start to finish was about two weeks.
Unlike my other fabrication projects, where sketching is a necessity, I didn't do a lot of planning before starting to build Audrey II. Here's a small doodle I did on a Which Wich sandwich bag, inspired by promo shots of Rick Moranis as Seymour from the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors. I knew I wanted to be holding Audrey II, which would necessitate a fake arm to sell the illusion.
Here are the top and bottom of the pod, templated from scratch. I knew that size was essential. I didn't want the pod to be so large that it looked unbelievable, nor so small it didn't look intimidating. You can also see in this picture some of the fuzzy green fleece I had that I would eventually use to dress the puppet.
Here's the top and the bottom of the pod carved down a little so the pieces interface better when they close. The grey piece in the back is the mouth plate where my hand will open and close the mouth. I put it so far back so the mouth would be able to open super wide and create this cavernous gaping maw out of a medium sized "head".
Here's the mouth after I've added some teeth, tongue, and texture. The tongue is made of hand carved foam and painted, while the teeth are unpainted soft foam. This way the puppet could interact with people nearby without risking them injury, while still appearing capable of biting.
I experimented with painting the pod's lips red and leaving them exposed, but ultimately decided against it.
Another fun feature of my Audrey II is that it was able to spit "poison" (water). This was accomplished using parts of a roundup weed whacker pump and additional tubing hidden throughout the Seymour costume that plugged into the puppet.
You can also see here I've started to dress more of the mouth and head with more fabrics, opting for [mostly] naturalistic tones and textures. When the mouth opened and closed, the fuzzy pink strips would snap and relax, creating the appearance of a sinewy fleshy mouth. This natural movement helped make the final plant look alive.
At this point I had completed the fake arm and wanted to see if it read well with the plant. The fake arm was made of two pieces of pool noodle held together with elastic at the elbow and a gardening glove at the end (in the final costume, I wear a gardening glove on my real hand as well so it doesn't seem out of place). The fake hand has pieces of velcro attached to the fingers and palm that line up with pieces of velcro on the flowerpot so that the hand always stays attached. Otherwise, the flowerpot and the jacket are two separate pieces.
Also notice that I have added more detail to the plant itself, including more sinewy material lining the mouth, more green on the outside, spikes, and a "stem".
Here's the final motion test for the Audrey II puppet with full foliage attached. The leaves were all glued on by hand and added a lot of passive motion to the puppet, as well as blending the line between fantasy and reality.
And here I am, in full costume, at my schools costume contest (I won first place this year, thank god, after the tragic setback that was Halloween 2014).
A final rundown on how the poison spitting works: I had a pouch full of water in the right pocket of my trench coat. A pipe ran out of the bottom of that pocket and down and around the back of me to my left pocket where the roundup pump was (the pump that comes with this). Another pipe ran out of that pump, down and around the back of me again to my right side where it ran up my right arm into Audrey II's mouth. Amazingly, it's worked like a charm for years now.
The fake bloody arm wasn't a part of it, someone just put it in Audrey II's mouth.
After Halloween, I brought Audrey II back out for San Diego Comic Con where I cosplayed as Seymour (and shaved)! Here's some photos people took of/with me.
The costume was a great success. Lots of people couldn't figure out how I did it, and a few of them got pretty spooked. But what surprised me the most was how many people were genuinely super excited to see an "old school" character out and about amongst the Batmans and Deadpools and Ricks and Morties.
And I also ran into puppet/creature legend Kirk R. Thatcher which made my whole summer.
And imagineering legend Bob Gurr!