Costume Characters!

BETTY LEHNUS and I formed a partnership in the late 1970's after we both left the TROTTER BROTHERS PRODUCTIONS. We had worked together well for the last 5 years creating many of that companies puppets and costumes, as well as the entire production of JACK AND THE BEANSTALK. Betty was a master craftsman and seamstress, and i could come up with workable designs ( although her design sense was every bit as good as mine, and probably better...She had not been practicing it as long at that point and was a bit "design-shy").

Our bfirst client was the WICHITA KANSAS chapter of the LION'S CLUB. They wanted a mascot costume to use in parades and fundraising events. Betty and I had done exactly two of these type of costumes before; the GIANT from Jack & the Beanstalk and a SANTA costume for the 1977 season of SANTA'S MAGIC CIRCUS touring show.

I needed to come up with an animal ( here specifically a LION) head pattern which could be created without too much time and expense, since we were constantly dealing with budget limitations ( the LOW Bidder Always gets the Job! ) and yet we still needed to realize a workable profit from the project for us both, otherwise the effort was'nt worth the time.

In the top sketches I developed this. The Heads were made from 1" thick charcoal foam sheeting ( this is much denser and heavier than standard white foam rubber sheeting). This was cut to shape and fastened together with contact adhesive ( again much stronger bond than regular contact cement).

At the mouth opening and the lower head opening I used heavy gauge wire pressed into the foam and  pinched together to form a rounded edge that was very rigid and strong. A standard hardhat with chin strap was glued and wired up into the top of this construction to hold it tightly to the wearer's head.

The mouth opening was backed with wire screening ( the same as used for screen doors) painted black and the eye openings ( through which the wearer could actually see) were the same screening, painted black with an "eye" accent in white. Usually an exclamation mark...my preference was a comma..it just seemed to suit the whimsical characters.  The outer covering was fake fur...long nap or short to suit the character. The LION had gold short nap fur as a covering with long nap brown for the mane.

We delivered on time and on budget and our business was off and running...over the next 5 years we created dozens of costumes and puppets for various clients and made a fair amount of spare change!