White Blood cell - Techniquest puppet takeover (2025)
Director - Lucy Hall and Elliot Ditton
Costume design and making - Dora Croally
Group leader, puppet maker - Nancy Tait
Puppeteers - Nancy Tait and Nancy Chappelle-Hale
Photographer - Simon Gough
I made a big friendly white blood cell as part of the ‘Techniquest puppet takeover’ where we had to pick one of the science exhibits and create an interactive and educational short piece of puppetry for kids. The white blood cell was sat next to a conveyor belt (the blood stream) that had good and bad germs on it that the kids could feed them, and it would eat (absorb) the good ones and spit out (reject) the bad ones.
Scroll to the bottom to see a clip of them in action!
As part of the takeover we also did a space themed puppetry show which you can see here!
PROCESS
Initial mood board , designs and maquette
Mood board
Making
Clay sculpt.
Covered sculpt in cling film and strips of masking tape.
Drew out the pattern pieces.
Took the tape pieces off the sculpt and cut them out.
Scaled up the pattern pieces.
Taped them together to see if the pattern worked and the scale was correct.
Cut them out of plasterzote foam.
Stuck the pieces together with evo-stick.
Scrimmed and painted the outside then cut out the mouth so I could add a mech to make it open and close.
Sewed fur trim on to sheets of calico then stuck it on as pattern pieces with evo-stick.