Today was about two things: repetition and the mother bird walking! We cut out the plywood rings for the other two hatchlings and also built another 5 legs. These things we had done before and therefore can quickly “mass produce” the components, changing the size slightly for each hatchling to suit there character a little better.

What was more exciting was putting the mother bird together. We used renoflex to build the harness, giving support to the shoulders, waist and back. We then super-sized the legs, spent an awfully long time cutting some aluminum with a hacksaw and put it all together to give the mother bird her first steps!

We are a little behind on the build but still really looking forward to next week!

Just half a day today and we were faced with the task of carving a giant egg! These are for the nest, as Dr. Newbury reveals the eggs in the performance to find that they have hatched! We are carving one egg out of foam and then using the classic "paper-mache" technique to create the three egg shells. We first drew the shape of the egg onto the foam and then carved the shape while constantly re-drawing shapes until it was finished!

We continued the construction in the workshop, this process mostly revolved around creating joints for the legs. It was important to get them to lock in the correct way so that the walking looks natural and smooth. Combining the pipe with the wood enabled us to achieve a movement that will look naturalistic for the Lyma Bird puppets. This meant the Lyma Bird species took its first steps ever today!

Another big part of today was working out the length of the Mother Bird legs and sizes of the different body components. She will be 12ft with her neck fully extended so it is important that the puppeteer is fully supported and the weight is spread evenly and is balanced; so even at this early stage it is important to keep this in mind. More on this tomorrow as the metal will be arriving for the framing! 

The focus of this day was to turn the initial drawings into physical 3D shapes. This is always one of trickiest process: to start the build! Confronted with piles of materials and a couple of drawings we started to cut the basic shapes and figure out of the joints will fit together to create fully fledged locking legs. Prior to today we have been looking at flamingos and ostriches skeletons and bone structures to base the design on – and for the mother bird even dinosaurs!

We are really excited to see one of the hatchlings beginning to take shape!

So the process officially begins! After being weighed down with admin, ordering materials and research, we are unleashed onto the rehearsal room. Armed with large sheets of paper, coloured markers and red noses, we started to find out about what exactly these Lyma Birds are. Thank you to the University of Kent’s School of Arts for the rehearsal space, which allowed us to ran around and clown our way into material.

We started with clowning games and exercises limbering up the creative muscles. After this we fell upon to our large sheets of paper with pens, scribbling and spider diagram-ing the major concepts of the show. This exercise allowed us to have a clear idea of what a Lyma Bird was. After a rather nice lunch break we moved onto the character of Dr. Newbury and started a similar process; spider diagraming and then hot-seating the character to find quirks and traits about her. Finally we put these elements together and started to improvise a rough script for the opening of the show, which is when Dr. Newbury starts her presentation about the Lyma Birds only to realize the eggs she has with her have hatched with the hatchlings nowhere to be seen! OH MY GOODNESS!

Exciting start…now to build these Lyma Birds…