I posted the write-up below in
2007when the city of Vallejo commissioned
a giant Mariano Vallejo for the Vallejo,
California 4th of July parade. For July,
2008, they asked that General Vallejo be
joined by his wife, Benicia Vallejo.
Below are photos of the newly constructed
Benicia, and the first time that puppet
Mariano meets his puppet wife (he is
looking at her with adoration,
obviously!)
Above, Mariano gazes with
love at the "little woman." To
right we see Benicia next to an 8 foot
ladder. Both giants are over 10 feet tall
and both weigh less than 20 pounds, fully
dressed! It will take 6 puppeteers to
work the two puppets.
Making
a Light and Comfortable Giant Puppet for
the 4th of July Parade
July 4,
2007 Marked the 200th birthday
celebration of General Mariano Vallejo,
who lived in Sonoma, CA, and the city of
Vallejo, CA is named after him. To
celebrate, the cities of Sonoma and
Vallejo commissioned Magical Moonshine to
make two giant Vallejo puppets to walk in
the parades. We made the puppets very
light and airy so the puppeteer inside
would be as comfortable as possible (the
puppet was less than 25 lbs. and had a
structure that allowed the puppeteer
inside to stand the puppet on the street
and rest inside, not holding the weight
of the puppet at all.)
The first
step was to find pictures of Vallejo.
General
Vallejo has some very distinctive
characteristics, as you can see. He has
curly hair and large "mutton
chop" sideburns (the fluffy hair on
his cheeks.) In all the pictures he also
looked very stern. He probably smiled a
lot in real life, but this was the style
of photographs in those days (the mid
1800s.) Since the puppet was going to be
very, VERY large, and since there would
probably be small children at the parades
that might get scared of a giant, we
decided to make him look very friendly.
First
Michael sculpted a head out of clay.
Inside the head is a 3 foot diameter
beach ball. A plaster mold was made and
the entire head (shown below all painted)
is made out of a very lightweight plastic
mesh, with bamboo structure inside.
He needed
some clothes in the style of the mid
1800s (but very fancy, after all it was
his 200th birthday party!)
Then he
was ready for the parade. Here he is in
the Sonoma 4th of July parade. He is
holding a piece of his birthday cake. The
giant cake (not shown) was made of foam
and cardboard, but looked like it had
chocolate frosting with raspberry layers.
It had three candles on it, in the shape
of numbers (2, 0, and 0.) And below you
can see Travis (the puppeteer who carried
him in the Vallejo city parade) making
friends with the General.
