Building a Dark Crystal Skeksis Puppet!

At this year's R2LA meetup, we met prop builder Chris Ellerby, who brought along his work-in-progress project, a full Skeksis puppet from The Dark Crystal! Chris is designing and building every part of this puppet, and shares with us some interesting functional elements of his build. It's as impressive as it is ambitious!
Find Chris's projects and other creature work at www.vexfx.com/
Shot and edited by Joey Fameli
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Tested is:
Adam Savage / donttrythis
Norman Chan / nchan
Joey Fameli / joeyfameli
Thanks for watching!

[@djokawari1]

Just clicked this because I was bored. Ended up being a clearly intelligent guy who has built something very cool. Thanks Tested.

[@Porco1984]

What a cool guy! :D Can't wait to see the finished project, I hope tested will do a bit on it when the time comes :)

[@TJRohyans]

Of all the older movies being re-made these days, "The Dark Crystal" is one I really wish they'd remake, and remake it "old school" not with CGI!

[@kosmoboo]

You sorta got your wish now...

[@redjack2629]

This is pretty wonderful... I, one day, want to be a monster maker, so this is... Wonderful. Especially since I loved the Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Never-Ending Story, etc.

[@0Bariq0]

thats just simply amazing. he seems so cool, i would love to see the finished project one day.

[@soterioncoil2163]

I hope I'm still alive if there's a Dark Crystal sequel/prequel. I saw it in the theater with my mom and dad a long time ago!

[@kosmoboo]

You still alive?

[@AEmiliusLives]

So cool. I

[@SuperOm1234]

+AEmilius Lives Skeksis' scarred the crap out of me when i was a kid.

[@oberkorn13]

+Croter8ment ESSENCE!!!! DRAIN HER ESSENCE!!!!!

[@nagualdesign]

+Drop Bear +Croter8ment *Scared.

[@AEmiliusLives]

+Drop Bear +Croter8ment +DeadlySilence Games Weird that I was never scared. It was a movie that I wasn't able to share with anyone of my generation, not even my older cousins, precisely because they thought it was a "scary monster movie". But I was never scared by it. And I was almost FOUR years old! :P And I remember like it was yesterday! I was in awe!

[@gilkizzel]

Great work. Keep it up Chris.

[@craigjones21]

Super cool. I've always imagined building something like this, a very lifelike animatronic costume controlled by software and the person wearing it (me). THanks for sharing this! I look forward to seeing the final work!

[@UthoRiley]

"A gathering of R2D2 Droid builders"... If you ever doubt about the world being awesome, this would be a solid counter argument. ;)

[@justliam2768]

Make R2D2's, not war!

[@Gustbear]

You have to do a follow up on this project! Very cool!

[@Razarelie]

Tested team please follow this for us

[@danielleon3456]

fantastic words.. Learning is one of the things with should never stop doing

[@danielleon3456]

we should* stupid cellphone

[@jetplanevanman33]

+Daniel Leon at least you learned

[@LaynieFingers]

Yes! Yes yes yes!!

[@86LukeM]

Damn now I want to watch Dark Crystal. Would be awesome to do for Halloween.

[@petecity100]

Great video. I need that box honestly.

[@cinnamongrader6608]

So cool!

[@chefhawk]

Very cool project .

[@josephdavis2695]

Talented builder!

[@redfreckle2044]

he seems like a good guy

[@schackg.lystrup2100]

The creator seems like the kindest person ever

[@healthyhobo5270]

This is awesome

[@TheFurriestOne]

Inspirational attitude!

[@TodayI1]

I like this dude!

[@bonbadilmoi9325]

really nice.

[@jaxnean2663]

This guy is amazing!

[@zarran1]

8 servos just for the eyes, great info :) ty Tested/Chris Ellerby

[@user-im7km8tq7j]

Damn, I really want to see details on original skeksis as well, that man seem to know a lot

[@eyeofender8950]

Yeah! Stan Winston School!

[@penutbuttercrutch]

One of my favourite movies

[@thanatostariq9600]

I honestly thought the original skeksis were a lot bigger and that the puppeteers heads were in that hump on their back

[@QueenWaspGo]

Essence!

[@bobwall8021]

does this mean we can do a dark crystal broadway musical now?

[@Hugh.Manatee]

+bob wall I would pay to see that!

[@puppetville-bethobrien4139]

I'm a puppet builder too. self taught. I have the same philosophy. but so far I tracked the foam and sewing. ha ha, we should get together like PB & J.😉

[@nilupatel8851]

I love dark crystal

[@HistoryUnwound]

In the middle of my own build after watching Age of Resistance. The question is, do I play the Scientist, or Chamberlain?

[@2006jakebob]

Scientist would be cool! Im doing Chamberlain myself but I did ask myself the same question

[@lizardboy2k]

My DREAM!!!!!!!!!!

[@TheRevolucas]

Norm is a good interviewer.

[@TheRevolucas]

No. That's total bullshit. Norm clearly researches the subject or just already knows which is good. He knows what questions to asks and he helps the interviewee move along so they aren't stuck just saying 'Uh-uh' or rambling on about a single talking point, just like a radio talk host would do. Watch any other amateur interviewer and the conversations always come out awkward with pauses or strange irrelevant questions being asked. Norm does his job amazingly well considering how robotic he is at times.

[@DeathBringer769]

+Alundaio Couldn't agree more. It's like some people don't know how to mentally grasp Norm's personality so they just get this mental image that he's terrible. Couldn't be farther from the truth.

[@Tsukroff]

That puppet looks like the chamberlain.

[@vinnycarothers4740]

It looks great. But let me guess. He's being Chamberlain

[@Wheel333]

Cool, love the aluminium drilled L SQ and flat bar. Where can you get that ?

[@nathangray7160]

Here is one place: www.sparkfun.com/categories/155

[@ChrisEllerby]

+Wheel333 It's a build system called Actobotics, made by Servo City. servocity.com

[@vcancer]

The only thing is that there is no head rotation. Only looking left, right, up, down. Not natural. He has to add a rotation plate to give it a more natural realistic look in the movement of the Skeksis. I guest its back to the drawing board.

[@nagualdesign]

+Victor Vazquez I don't know how a skeksis moves, but humans and other animals tend to keep their eyes fairly level while looking left, right, up and down, so having no head rotation won't look too unnatural.

[@ChrisEllerby]

+Victor Vazquez The head rotation will be servo driven.

[@vcancer]

Cool can't wait to see it finished

[@xReaperGrimWolfx]

Puppeteers: makes puppet to be used by multiple people to operate Cosplayer: hold my beer* *Makes a skeksis cosplay with moving eyes an mouth

[@sitgg]

lol SketchUp the MS paint of 3D cad design.

[@HunterRodrigez]

+Reece Marsh well if its got everything you need then why not ?

[@Hugh.Manatee]

+Hunter Rodrigez Exactly, I sometimes use MS paint to make a quick and ugly diagram to explain something. Google SketchUp and TinkerCAD serve a similar purpose.

[@HunterRodrigez]

AdenineMonkey It took me forever to figure out how to resize pictures with Phoshop 6 (I was like 10 at the time) so most of the time I edited a picture in PS and then switched to paint just to resize it... Which almost always horribly pixilated the picture

[@sitgg]

+Hunter Rodrigez You're exactly right at this small business scale SketchUp is the perfect platform. However as his business grows and he starts outsources parts manufacturing, his partners will want and industry standard file for CAD software such as Solidworks.

[@Hugh.Manatee]

***** I'm currently teaching Blender to a small group of 10 to 14 year olds. We're moddeling a tiger that we're going to pose and then 3D print. Some of them have a little experience working with TinkerCAD or Inventor. The first thing I did was explain the differences between those programs and why you would use on or the other. Each one is useful in certain situations.

[@evilbilla]

Skeksis have alot of facial expressions..how have you created controls for that from lips being pulled back crinkling of nose..a scowl??? The realism as well without the jerky robotics of it..dont get me wrong i love this concept keeping it puppets and not cgi..its still run by a human while utilizing robotics and coding..(im a huge stem mom and i was raised in the 80s so best of both worlds)

[@RaisesCom]

MAKE AN IPAD PRO VIDEO!

[@hasanhas00n1]

CGI is pretty advance nowadays we don't need mechanics in movies

[@vonantero9458]

+unknown name 543 Get out.

[@hasanhas00n1]

Von Antero make me.

[@jaxnean2663]

Yes, but actors respond better to REAL creatures instead of a guy and a stick, and also, there is something real, true, honest and believable about sfx that cgi lacks.

[@hasanhas00n1]

this "invention" would be good in mid 90's were cigi and sfx sucks however now it's pretty sophisticated and advanced nearly as good as real objects. look at pirates of the caribbean did they use some mechanical tool for the tentacle octopus like human? avatar, ted, the dark knight (two face). all these were successful blockbuster movies. what's the point of an actor who can't act ? lacks imagination, can't fake his/her reactions? "real, true, honest" it's a movie not a civil law court. Jax Nean

[@jonathanrose829]

Mmmmmmmmmmm

[@thekendrickhuynh]

0th.

[@justliam2768]

mmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm....

[@deanleitch3704]

Second

[@benkoskela1886]

6th comment

[@andrelagreca3214]

first

[@kl1970]

+Andre LaCool first confirmt

[@kl1970]

+Andre LaCool viewer 69th lel