A Backpack-Mounted Land Puppet

Mantis is:

A fully articulated mobile sculpture project by "Killbuck" and "Jellyfish".  This land-puppet stands approx. 12 feet high with plasma sphere eyes, turning head, four-way expanding mandible, flip-up abdomen and walks on all six legs.  All done up in battery-powered neon wire for a startling night time effect.

She is made primarily of lightweight PVC sheeting and tubing, corrugated plastics, and is mounted on an aluminum backpack frame.  Not yet weighed in, it currently feels like wearing a dog on your shoulders... a very large dog.  If you start at the bottom of this page and work your way up, you will see how she went from concept to completion with all the trial-and-error in between.

9-10-2006: She can appear at all the festivals in the world, but their remains only one Burning Man and this year Mantis stole his heart.  With all the earth-shaking art around her, it was such a joy to see her connect with and delight participants throughout Black Rock City.  Special thanks to all the crew and volunteers from Kamp Apokiliptika including, but not limited to: Irish, Dougledutch, Spectabillis, Robotland, The Admiral, Nox, Count Boxarox, and Bay Bridge Sue.  Here are some photos put up on the web by Smood, Rosidae, and Albill:

8-9-2006: So busy... must stop... so fun!  The Drum, Dance, and Didgeridoo festival in Reno was a blast.  We had her sitting on her launch gantry all day and then deployed at night during the breathtaking performance of Reno's own Controlled Burn fire performers.  Joined them again at the Nevada Museum of Art for Playa on the Plaza.  Click this great photo by Bill Kositzky. So big it could be your screensaver:

Then August 5th was the wonderful gig with jam band The String Cheese Incident at an outdoor amphitheater in Eugene, Oregon.  Tripped some happy people there, to be sure.  I can't believe we made it through that packed crowd, thanks to volunteer spotters.  Busted both front knees so I'll finally do Killbuck's bidding and install PVC hinges.  On the way back we plotted and planned next year's project.  Top secret, don't you know.

7/12/2006: MiniMan vs. Mantis: A Match of Mortal Combat at the Green Room, Reno: Video by gertieok-- click here to watch.     Delicious images by Team Mantis Photographer, Bill Kositzky:

7/9/2006: Welcomed by the talented fire-spinners of Controlled Burn to join them and The Big Giant Head at the Mapes/Plaza/Ice Rink.  Great show, but the main inverter keeps overheating. ????????

7/7/2006: With Killbuck on the mend, Irish, Tony, Paula, and Kiwi took her on out for a serendipitous appearance.  Artown was showing The Wizard of Oz outdoors and Wingfield park in Reno.  Mantis assembled at the other end of the bridge and patiently awaited her prey.  When the Dorothy woke up and the credits rolled, the families attempting to exit met with delightful doom.  Once they touch her eyes it is hard for them to stop.  She has a hypnotic effect on children that seems to calm them if they are a little scared as seen in this wonderful video by Darmaid Horkan (aka Irish):

Click here to watch the movie (10 MB).

7/4/2006: 4th Of July was fun for Mantis.  We put a bunch of "lost pet" flyers on the community mailboxes in my neighborhood in Sparks.  Those that followed her down to the fireworks viewing point made for a nice parade of the night creatures.  Killbuck operated her that night and after removing himself from the cockpit, he proceeded to trip in the dark and bruise his ribs, poor fellow.  He's trying to heal up for the next appearance.

6/16/2006: The dazzling fire-spinning talent of Controlled Burn welcomed Mantis to the parking lot of The Liquid Lounge.  It was a great summer evening opportunity and the crowd seemed to love the interaction.  A little tricky when we took her for a sidewalk stroll due to canopies and trees.  Broke one of the legs at the joint when moving the control arms too quickly.  She comes off more spooky if we move slow anyway... lesson learned.  Considering re-suspension cable reinforcement.  These photos showed up on somebody's blog.  Thanks to them and Nat for the heads-up.  Finalizing the Eugene Oregon gig to perform with The String Cheese Incident among a patch of sculptured alien flowers.  What's next, tour t-shrits?

5-31-2006: Thanks to the staff at Bud Beasely Elementary school for allowing Mantis to perform for the students today in a special assembly.  She had a great time and especially likes it when kids shake her hands, pet her eyes, and scream and shout.  Click these to open some mini-movies of the performance:
Movie #1    Movie#2     Movie #3    Movie #4    Movie #5    Movie #6    Movie #7    Movie #8

And here are some pictures.  Just click on them to make them bigger:

5-23-2006: Thinned out the UV LED's by half.  Much better, but she still looks like she's wearing purple ortho braces.  Just three "feet" to apply el wire to and we are fully operational, leaving only the occasional tweak and what we will now call her "core being".

5-15-2006: Little victories.  Don't lots of famous sculptors have interns to do all the tedious work? Where's ours?  Making progress with jagged bends of el wire inside the green fur of the claws.  The UV black light LED's make a cool pinkish purple glow in the mouth, but makes it look like our girl is wearing braces.  Too busy in the mouth with all of those microcell foam fleshy bits.  Happy with the new angular el wire framing at the top of the thorax... much better than our slacker wrap-around last-minute job.

    Click here for a bad mini-movie.

5-8-2006: Running low on all the wrong colors and widths of el wire, with plenty of the wrong stuff coming out of our ears.  Using lime regular bright on the edges of the feet and following the inner flanges with alternating yellow and orange angel hair, It looks like this:

Click here for a mini-movie of successful horn button alternating switch that will trigger a secret surprise.
Lots of shoring up in the brain box today.  Now can fit two batteries in there with little room left.  Now up to three regular and one huge inverter.  Maybe need to think about heat sinks.

4-30-2006: At the bowling alley yesterday she really dazzled some folks.  It was a private party and we were glad that the kids there were not too entirely terrified.  She's been invited by the Principal at Bud Beasely Elementary School to do a special assembly event so we're getting excited.  The antennas are a little wonky within the acrylic tubes and that's cool, just have to keep them inside the sleeves.  Killbuck was operating that day and just raved about the ballast and new rigging.  It's all minor adjustments from here on out... unless we decide to illuminate the "creature within".  More on that later...?

4-15-2006:  Fortune favors the foolish!  After intensive, relentless, last-minute work to the sound of electronic music that makes you go go go, we cobbled her together in time for our gig with Munzbot at The Zephyr.  The anticipated human reaction was correct!  People looooove to look at, pet, and interact with her.  One group saw her from a block away and were drawn to her like a bug-light.  Once they touch her plasma dome eyes it is hard for them to stop.  The fact that we could genuinely impress the Munzbot (also known as HotShot) crew meant a lot to us.  Munzy was outstanding as always in both autonomy and dialog, and Mantis was honored to be invited by him.  Click the photos courtesy of THISISTHATWHICHIS.  Here's some of what we learned from this public field test:

• Control arms are well angled but too long.  Easy to shorten and it will make her easier to set down

• Color coding electrical connections makes for fast assembly.  Would a multiple connector improve things? Killbuck suggests a PVC board with all connectors on it and in one place.

• Middle legs have an interesting bend but may still be too long

• Front foot plates need trimming to prevent drag and tripping

• More ballast was very necessary due to the wider distribution of weight than our previous MiniMan project

• Needs more shoulder padding, yathink?

• She is tall enough to have to watch out for telephone lines.

• Cross articulation works as planned, pulley system to be tested next

• Killbuck's new foot strap design works very well indeed with minor adjustments

• Two regular and one huge el wire inverter lit her up very nicely

• Throttle lock for head movement does not hold so well.  Her head dangles and bounces as the operator moves, though it is kind of charming

• The vellum-wrapped clear PVC pipe stuffed with el wire looks very nice and thick.  People are surprised that the "tubes" are cool to the touch

• Things to bring: step stool, headlamp flashlight, weight for securing base, better boots, small, collapsible camp stool for operator to rest on.

• She weighs more than MiniMan, though not much.  Maybe 80-90 pounds?

• I need to start exercising more

      ...(aftermath)

4-12-2006: Frustrated myself by clipping the excess off the control cables too early.  Getting the barrel ends on them was like building a ship in a bottle as I worked through the eye cavity. 

4-6-2006: Over the hump now!  Hand brake control works on the mandibles!  Throttle control works on the head movement!  My worries of the cable through lengths are for naught.  Some minor adjustments and we'll be just fine.  Click here to see a mini-movie... Mantis sings!

4-2-2006: Finally got to work with The Kernul at his home so he did not have to make the commute.  Lots done, and special thanks to Marshall for joining in the tedious vellum wrapping.  His devotion to precision may be lost to many, but not me.  Installed aluminum L-bracket to which we will mount the mandible control cable.  Tricky, but not impossible.  With the impending sneak preview gig at The Zephyr Bar we will be in a real crunch to complete things.

3-23-2006: Used some microcell foam sheet to do some angular embellishments ala art deco.  Took the leap and installed the el wire up, down, and throughout the thorax.  Nice look, especially when run with the new "big honkin' inverter" that drives the high-bright highly brighter than the pic's below.  Don't like the look of the el wire looped around the shoulders.  Dig the way the corrugated clear Lexan sheets disperse the light along the horizontal rows...

3/19/2006: Noble toil for the good of our insect... Cut all limb pieces, temporary assembly, and took her for a stroll.  She is just magnificent!  Cute and spooky at the same time.  Very nice balance especially when heavy batteries installed for ballast at base.  Finished wrapping one of the arms with vellum (tedious work!) and it glows as expected.  Plasma dome eyes installed and tested.  Killbuck had a better idea for the yellow arm spikes in doo-laps using acrylic tubes to stiffen the el wire for desired shapes. 

Final concept sketch by the hand of our despotic leader:

3/13/2006: Progress on the hips and bustle:

And the Kernul finishes the construction of a very charming head and neck:

3/11/2006: Trying different el wire colors for the hooks in the "do-laps" in arms... not there yet.  Great progress from Killbuck on the sinister looking mouth:

3/8/2006: Stellar news!  The Mantis Project has been approved for a grant from the Burning Man Arts Council!  A special thank you to Art Curator Lady Bee for her support and encouragement.  Of course, it's not about the money.  We just love this kind of validation in knowing that not everybody thinks we are madmen.  Still, I placed our el wire order with the very helpful Mike and Pat at World Aglow/Coolight West... thanks guys!

3/6/2006: Fishing tackle "Brain Box" painted black installed with preliminary components.  Nice little flip compartments so I stuck a voltmeter in there to check the battery condition... slick!  I think we'll need something like a SCSI cable/connector just to handle the 32 leads coming out of the sequencer.  Just enough room for battery, switches, inverters and sequencer (through the kindness of Dragonfly Jafe), and a very cool idiot light donated by Mr. Fixit long ago.  I did not know until today that it had text inside and was delighted by the message you can see by clicking the last picture:

Sorry Kernul, I could not resist the key ignition again.  Please try not to break off the key again, won't you? 8-)

3/5/2006: Day of the Thorax.  Killbuck started the Art Deco framing and embellishments and I started to finish up the back.  I love how the "uni-breast" idea looks so '20's art deco, like an Oscar.  I started to finish out the PVC sheeting on the back and it's just coming out too square.  It's more of a slight S-curve like a spine, but that may be getting too close the the human woman form and farther from the bug.  There's a middle ground there somewhere.  Painted the shoulders green and Killbuck has an idea to tie them in to the thorax as well as a bustier to tie it in the the abdomen... sounds promising.  More clevis pins installed to make it easy to assemble

3/2/2006: Finished cut and curl on abdomen spires.  Still want to find a way to lower abdomen so it can caster on the ground with a wheelie.  Concerned about wind sheer with the slightest breeze twisting the operator sideways.  Installed lower rib plate and hip plate at thorax.  Nice shape.  Measured for el wire... gulp... need as much as 250 feet of lime green.  That's 100 feet more than we used on MiniMan.  Hope we get that Black Rock Arts Foundation grant we applied for.

2/20/2006: A tipping point day at the slab with Kernul Killbuck.  Almost completely framed out the thorax and installed five plates for rib cage.  He made a great hinge for the head that we will cable control with a motorcycle throttle.

3/1/2006:

2/17/2006: It's just too lame and male of us to give her the human female figure.  After all, she's a bug.  Still, using the Lexan sheeting cut in to chevron pieces, and el wire run through it and along leading edges, we might just get a sterile looking effeminate form.  Bending the pipe inward at the hips too.  Dig:

2/12/2006: An important day today.  Killbuck was here and finally got to watch himself and MiniMan on the Discovery Times "Only In America show".  Nice to see the fine camera work they did as it's not easy shooting the low level light of our el wire puppets.  We've decided to use corrugated Lexan sheets of different widths stacked horizontally across the thorax.  The effect should be that of an insect with a human woman's figure in striped clothing.  Mantis was officially accepted by the Reno Artown committee and we are now working on scheduling the local events.

2/5/2006: Really inspired after taking the other puppet (MiniMan) to the Nevada Museum of Art for a night time performance with the skilled fire spinners of www.controlledburnreno.com and now it's time to make more progess on this bad bug.  Installed the thorax and shoulders.  She looks good as a female.

1/29/2006: Killbuck's "Glorious Day of Progress" resulted in the pictures of the head frame below.  Don't let me forget to give you the plasma domes for the eye installation when we next meet, old chum.  Brilliant mechanics on the 4-way mouth opening that may well be controlled by bicycle brake cable after all!  I painted the frame black and tested the effect of parchment paper wrapped around the clear pvc pipes to opaque paper spreads the internal el wire light to make it look like a green fluorescent insect limb (pictures below).  Sent away for some samples of green drafting vellum to see if it works better and has a good daytime look.  Will work on the front arm additional shapes from corrugated plastic today.  Things are getting as exciting as last year!

1/26/2006:  Cobbled together the tripod frame with handy tray for batteries, hydration pack, and light reading material.  Got good and sloppy molding the abdomen out of pvc foam sheet.  Mind the fumes, fly boy.  Click the photos below:

1/20/2006:  The following was submitted to the Reno Artown event:

Myself and partner Rex Norman build fully articulated land puppets that are backpack mounted and lit with neon chord. We are currently looking to enhance an existing event(s).

Outdoor venues are perfect, though both this piece and the one you can see at www.MutantVehicle.com/MiniMan.htm prefer dimly lighted areas so their neon wire lighting really makes them stand out. Walking in from behind people that are facing a show can be fun, and dancing is surprisingly nimble. Crowd interaction during intermission between performance acts could be great too. Really cool if we set it up so people discover her in the dark distance and are drawn to her instead of her approaching them.

Her performance is best if not lengthy, think one or two songs, and move on, or mozy through the crowd. Very interactive, she loves to give hugs, then surprise her new "lover" by opening her expanding Hoberman jaws and feign to devour their head, common in many species of real Mantis. Especially fun with group hugs. May be frightening to small children so she will try not to approach them directly unless encouraged to by their parents.

We like our work to be fully interactive, so children and grownups alike will want to pet, joke, play, and dance with her. The pieces are built of very lightweight materials, and are designed to look much heavier.

An interaction between Mantis and MiniMan could be staged. For example, either enter a crowd from opposite ends. Upon meeting in a designated center, they kiss, fight, and in the end Mantis removes MiniMan's head and retreats with her prize. Think Godzilla vs. Rodan.

Our biggest concern is security. Because the operator's hands and feet are fully encumbered, our experience has taught us that a security "handler" will be needed to restrain over-zealous crowd interaction so the fun continues unimpeded.

1/8/2005:  Great strides of progress today as Kernul Killbuck arrived to inspect my innovations and swarm me with his own.  Front arm to hind leg cross-articulation is a go.  Fiberglass spine up to the neck, then he did some ingenious bends in the PVS pipe to give the neck these natural looking ridges too.  Hoberman sphere mouth needs work to be stable, but the idea is sound.  Tried using a big 55 gallon plastic drum to put the springs in to make that "doom" sound.  Works better in smaller acrylic dome with less weight.  12 Volt series circuit works great to feed the 6 volt requirement of the two plasma sphere eyes. Green PVC sheeting divvied up so Killbuck can start on the head frame and I on the abdomen which may be spring-loaded to swing up like a trunk release to change batteries or for using very large porta-potties.  Click here for a mini-movie of Killbuck working the hind legs off.  You can see the top of the neck that is 11 feet off the ground.  Click these of photos of a possibility for sweeping up the neck from the shoulders of the backpack frame:

1/2/2005:   Maybe we'll enter him into a Halloween costume contest if he survives the playa.  Got the cross articulation to work pretty well with PVC pipe.  The counter balance makes the middle legs easier to lift, makes me want to reconsider using Killbuck's cam idea on the front arms instead.  Click here for a mini-movie of our baby's first steps.  Image below not of my creation, source unknown.

10-2-2005: More great discussion with Killbuck as we prepped MiniMan for the San Francisco Decompression.  The Mantis eyes may not get to be the ovals he imagined, as the plasma spheres are just too cool and interactive as fiery green globes that people can touch.  PVC foam sheeting is his newest best friend, and strips of that may prove sturdy for open frame construction.  Here's something Baddog sent us:

9-25-2005:  I'm having some success with two foot lengths of rigid clear acrylic tubing that I've found for cheap. They have a 1/4" outside diameter and inside fits the double-core el wire just great. The cool thing is I can heat it up with a heat gun or mini-torch and make smooth bends in it that go rigid when cool, all without blackening it. The advantage lies in dimensional stability so the skeletal framing of el wire actually lends strength to the overall structure. The challenge is in joining the lengths in a way that won't pinch the wire in between if they go... catiewompus (hi Tank Girl!). Clear tape and Goop adhesive are all I've come up with.

9-24-2005: The eyes have arrived.  Battery powered plasma domes that radiate a beautiful blue and green.  Glass domes so pretty fragile, but they will be high up enough not to get mucked with.  Very interactive when you touch them and the tentacles of light seek your fingers.  Learning and breaking new ground with R/C servos to move the head 360 degrees and with 3-D positioning.  Lots to glean from Robot War builders.  Thanks to Spectabillis and Robotland for their keen interest and leap into the fray.  Another idea is to make a lightweight resonant shell for the abdomen that would contain taught springs for reverberation and corrugated washboard on the outside so the hind legs could rub against for a creepy sound when walking.  Click here for a mini-movie of a sound test using an acrylic lightning beacon dome.  Pictures of the eyes below or click here for a mini-movie of them.

September 17, 2005 First Concept Rendering for
Burning Man 2006 after a brainstorming with Kernul Killbuck and his family by the pool.

Copyright 2005, 2006 By You Know Who