PROJECT CASE STUDY
Little Shop of Horrors
Puppets.
Design and creation of a series of Audrey II puppets for a production of Little Shop of Horrors at all scales.
The second of the large Audrey II puppets on stage in a dress rehearsal.
OVERVIEW
Horror sung at all scales.
Project: Little Shop of Horrors Puppets
Role: Design, Engineering, Fabrication
Skills: Animatronics, CAD (SolidWorks), Blender, microcontrollers (Atmel), mechanical design, fabrication
In 2019, I was commissioned to design and fabricate a series of Audrey II puppets for a stage production of Little Shop of Horrors. The project required multiple puppets at different scales, each tailored to specific moments in the performance, from tightly controlled musical sequences to large, theatrical reveal moments.
The core challenge was balancing performance reliability with expressive movement. Each puppet needed to function consistently across repeated shows while still delivering the character and presence expected of Audrey II. This resulted in a hybrid approach, combining animatronic systems, manual puppetry, and large-scale mechanical design.
The project was developed through a pipeline that moved from VR sculpting and digital modelling through to CAD-based mechanical design and physical fabrication, ensuring that each puppet could be both visually accurate and mechanically robust.
The Small Puppets
The smallest Audrey II puppets were designed for precision and repeatability, particularly in scenes requiring tight synchronisation with music and dialogue.
Two distinct versions were developed.
The primary version was a fully self-contained animatronic puppet. Animations were created in Blender and exported using a custom pipeline, allowing motion data to be played back via an SD card reader on an ATmega328P microcontroller. This enabled the puppet to perform pre-programmed sequences in perfect sync with the musical score, removing the need for live operation and ensuring consistent performance across every show.
Designing this system required careful consideration of space and weight constraints. All electronics, actuators, and structural components had to be compactly integrated within the puppet while maintaining serviceability and reliability.
Alongside this, a secondary cable-driven puppet was created as a mechanical backup. This version used a bicycle brake cable system, allowing it to be manually operated by a performer or stagehand offstage. While simpler in construction, it provided an essential redundancy, ensuring the production could continue seamlessly in the event of animatronic failure.
Together, these two approaches balanced technological precision with practical reliability, a critical requirement for live theatre.
The Large Puppets
For the later stages of the performance, larger Audrey II puppets were developed to deliver increased visual impact and physical presence on stage.
The first large puppet was a mechanically operated system built around a wooden internal structure. The mechanism was carefully balanced to allow expressive movement through a single control lever extending from the rear of the pod. This allowed a single operator to control the puppet smoothly while maintaining a strong visual performance.
The second large puppet introduced a more complex requirement: integrating a concealed operator within the structure itself. The design allowed the pod to split open at a key moment in the performance, revealing the performer inside.
This required a careful balance between strength and weight. The structure needed to be lightweight enough for practical stage use, while still being durable and stable under repeated operation. Achieving this involved thoughtful material selection and structural design to distribute loads efficiently without adding unnecessary mass.
Design and Fabrication
All puppets began as digital sculpts created in virtual reality, allowing for rapid exploration of form and proportion. These sculpts were then refined in Blender before moving into mechanical design.
For the larger puppets, internal mechanisms were developed in SolidWorks, ensuring that all moving parts could be accurately integrated within the sculpted forms. This workflow allowed aesthetic and mechanical considerations to evolve together, rather than being treated as separate stages.
Despite a compressed production timeline, the project delivered a complete suite of puppets that were both visually compelling and mechanically reliable, supporting the performance across its full run.
The first ‘puppet’ being an entirely animatronic piece was shown to be the correct choice, when it would be carried into the scene by Seymour, before being placed down on a rickety stool, finally coming to life completely unsassisted. This moment elicited loud gasps from the audience for every performance.
