- * - George Harrison lifesize Marionette creation - * -

[JimmyMcCullochFan]

A excellent question...

George to me has always been 'just George' and never a 'Beatle'.  I became aware of him in 1987 when his 'Cloud Nine' lead single and album was released. I became interested in his work and it increased with the release of the Wilbury era albums.  So i have always known him as a solo artist and never really attached him to his Beatle persona.  When i became much more aware of his solo work last year, i completey saw him as a totally different entity.  Naturally i went and researched the Beatles history and explored their music to learn all i could about his past, but George really stood out on his own and seemed sadly repressed.  Having been able to glimpse the 'real George' through my discoveries and through his own words, i have a even clearer view of him being SO MUCH MORE then just a band member.

So...when i decided to make this figure, it was a obvious choice for me to have him appear as he did in his later years.  I was adament about him not appearing too 'Beatly' and i argued with myself over his clothing choice.  I wanted this figure to portray the 'real' man and not the overly merchandised 'image' version so closely associated with The Beatles Era he tried so hard to escape.  It seemed a more fitting choice considering i was more interested in his music and persona, and George himself probably would have enjoyed the choice himself.   

Originally i planned and having 'George' look like he did in his late 80's period- 'Cloud Nine' era with the semi- shaven look.  It was changed while under construction as i was concerned people would confuse his appearence with Eric Clapton ( also a famous semi-shaven guitarist!). I wanted to avoid this, so i changed it to his clean shaven appearence from the 90's.  Also it turned out i did'nt need his 'beard' to hide the mouth gaps/mechanics after all.  The design came out much better then expected, so their was no need to use the 'beard' look to cover any gaps.   

Feel free to ask more questions!

That is certainly interesting that you became aware of George in '87 and didn't even know he was a Beatle! Reminds me of the 70's when some Wings fans didn't even know McCartney had been in a band prior to Wings.

[Unknown Delight]

I can relate to that - in high school, i was into Paul's solo stuff from 'Flowers in the Dirt' and 'Off The Ground'....and did'nt connect him completely with his Beatle past.

In George's case i have always seen him as his own entity.   It was not until much later ( last year really..) that i became more aware of his past.  Having learned some thing up to this point, i have a strong enough feeling to safely say he was well and above his Beatle character.  It is as if they are two COMPLETELY different people all together in my mind...and the 'true' George came to fruitation with the end of his previous incarnation as a pop icon.

God bless him for being graced to shine on his own.  The world would indeed be a sadder more miserable place without his uplifting contributions to the world.

[Mairi]

That's really cool. It's always interesting to see people approach the Beatles member with a different perspective. Personally, I think George's solo output stands up better than *most* of his Beatles tunes.

[Unknown Delight]

And i totally agree.  He was just taking his 'baby steps' back then....and grew wings once he was free from the shackles of Beatledom.

[Unknown Delight]

Some good happenings lately -


Over the past 3 days i have been filming NEW VIDEO PERFORMANCES of my George Harrison marionette. SIX new videos of 'George' in action were made, and the first of the new series will be up on YouTube sometime next week. I will of course post all links here as soon as they are live and ready for sharing. I think a couple of them are a step up from 'Any Road' which is currently up to 900+ views in a months time. THANK YOU to everyone who watched and shared! MORE are coming next week!

I may not release all of these at once...at this point i am not entirely sure. When i rewatch them i will decide then when the time to upload comes. There is one i am still on the fence about releasing ( due to a performance standpoint) so i may re-film it at a later date.

The other big news related to all of this is that i have discovered while experimenting around with 'George' during filming is that he can play REAL guitars! This was a wonderful surprise, for now i do not have to make special 'foamboard' models for him to use. This ALSO is a great discovery as it opens up George's ENTIRE catalog of songs now for play. I cannot express in mere words how stunning a realisation this all was. So in the forthcoming videos, you will see 'George' play REAL guitars..both acoustic AND electric. I have to say he looked mighty proper holding a old 50's Gibson model...It was a surreal 'Harrison Experience' moment. One neat thing is that if his hand is operated correctly, 'George' can actually strike the strings and create notes. Now THAT was rather surreal. I suppose i should not be so surprised, i mean, it's George Harrison for cryin' out loud..of COURSE he can play 'real guitars'!!

So a very exciting week on my end.


The new performance videos are:

* - "Pisces Fish" - My new fave...the song lends itself extremely well to 'George's' movements, plus some cool lighting is used.

* - "The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea' - 'George' is in fine form as he plays his Uke along to this favored tune.

* - 'If Not For You" - I filmed this just for fun, as i love the song and i was so amazed that 'George' could now play my real acoustic.

* - "Jai Sri Krishna' - Something i filmed exspecially for the spriritually enclined, 'George' blisses out in the garden.

* - 'That's The Way It Goes' - Another video i shot just for the fun of it, as 'George' plays a old Gibson. I may reshoot this at a later date, so i am not entirely sure if this will be released at this point.

* - I also had a friend film me performing 'George' so folks that are curious can see how i operate him. 'Devil and The Deep Blue Sea' was reshot in this form, so viewers can get a 'Behind the Scenes' ( or in this case 'Strings'!) look at what i do to bring 'George' to life.

[Unknown Delight]

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Came across these today, and thought it would be of interest to include them in this thread.

Here are some of the 60 or so preliminary drawings i did to plan out every feature realted to the 'George' marionette.

Much of what you will see was changed during his creation, particularly the crossbar controls and his visual appearence. Most of the internal workings and sculpted diagram ideas were used and executed almost exactly as originally drawn.

I will make notes where there is something that might be of special interest.

First up, one of the first full sheets of doodles i did to get out onto paper what had been in my head for about a month to see if this was feasable.



^ At this early stage 'George' was sporting his half-shaven 80's appearence. The main focus at this early stage was plotting out how the different animations would work in the context of his facial layout. In simple terms, would all i wanted him to do actually be able to happen internally in this figure. 'George' was originally planned to be a small marionette..much like your standard sized puppet figure...that would be operated on a tabletop and walk around. This changed later on as will be shown.

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^ Another early set of drawings, this time focusing on how the different facial animations will actually be tackled and built. All of the concepts here were actually used, with only very slight changes.

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^ This page represents what ideas i had for creating various aspects of his body, specifically his outer clothing and various limb details. Several pages were drawn outlining ideas for how his body should be made, but i chose this page to share as it has more variety ( and hopefully more interest!) Note the three figures on the top of the page- these are the three different clothing choices i was pondering over while construction was underway.

[Unknown Delight]

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Continuing now with the initial sketches that led to 'George's' creation.....





^ During the time i was working on sculpting his head, i did a series of sketches outlining ideas for how his arms and hands should appear and what they should be made from. This picture above shows a series of images covering all aspects of how he should strum his ukulele. Everything was considered, from posture, finger pose, appearence in general ( tendon lines, knuckles, fingernails, etc.) to help create a sense of realisim. The bottom half of this page shows the complex 'slide bar' i originally planned on making to enable 'George' to move his left hand to 'hold chord notes' on his uke when playing. This was never made primarily because when it became obvious this figure was turning out much larger then expected, this animation would have proved troublesome and difficult to operate. There was so much else to be mindful of when performing 'George' you would need another person to just operate his 'slide' hand. Another image of interest- in the bottom right hand side you can see the spoof i did of the banjolele's brand label. The original 'CN' was changed to a similarly styled 'GH' in honour of George.

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^ One of several napkins i drew on with ideas and planned strategies for how 'George' should be operated. Since he is a marionette, the strings were to be positioned to reflect where the various animations were to happen. The layout of the strings, and the shape of the crossbar controls, varies greatly from figure to figure. No two are ever the same really...as each character is usually of different size, weight, and has a different number of features or animations to control. Almost all of the charactersi had made up until this point were single-hand operated figures. 'George' had a far more complex array of animations, and required very careful considerations and planning to acheive the correct string layout and more importantly crossbar control layout. You can build the coolest puppet in the world, but it is really useless and a wasted effort if it cannot perform! So the top part of this early stage of development shows the string placement for both the head and body. At this point i knew 'George' was huge and would probably always perform seated..thus we see the string layout for his arms. The bottom half shows a few of the insane multitude of variations i made in trying to come up with a proper set of control bars. I must have gone through at least 30 different variations before reaching one that fit his needs perfectly. These shown were never used.

[Unknown Delight]

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^ Here is a very early napkin drawing i did to clarify what i had in my mind at that early stage for the controls for 'George'. The two control bars shown were a must, as one controls his head animations while the larger one handled the arm and hand animations. These two sets of animation needed to be seperated as the timing would be seriously off on both the lip sych animations and the hand strumming motion if melded together. Also, due to 'George' being lifesize, there was no way my stubby fingers could handle pulling all those strings together! So the 'splitting up' was always planned right from the start.
In the end, this layout was not used. The actual control bars came out looking like a reverse version of this, with no interlocking hook used. No back string or shoulder strings were used in the end, as they were not needed. The actual controls i ended up making ended up looking 'backwards' when compared to this early version...the strum string is now where the back string was to be shown above. The very bottom shows a pattened stripe that was to be used to decorate the control bars '..for a touch of George..' as the scrawled lettering says in the bottom right hand edge. The final controls were indeed decorated - strips of Indian/Nepalense patternwork designs and a small 'Dark Horse' image were smoothed into various decorative points within the wood.

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^ Another napkin drawing, this time showing the correct animation sequence for 'George' to strum his uke. At this point i was near completion and most of the project was finished. This was drawn out just to give me a sense of what needed to happen when i finally strung the uke and placed it in George's hands. The black triangles show in which direction each string needs to be going in to create the illusion of actually strumming the instrument. It takes seven strings for 'George' to strum. If i had added the 'slide' feature, it would have been eight. The various angles and smooth movements are achieved by the combination of rocking back and forth between the seven, with the primarily 'strum string' attached through his guitar(s) being the key component.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into what went into making 'George'. When i finally get the new batch of performance videos up, you will get to see him in action with me at the controls.

[JimmyMcCullochFan]

Looking forward to the videos 

[Mairi]

very interesting!

[Unknown Delight]

Watch out for those FIVE NEW videos ......they are in our midst!

[Unknown Delight]

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Ladies and Gents...the moment you have all been waiting for...

Here now for your enjoyment is the ALL NEW collection of 'George Harrison' Marionette performance videos!


Now enjoy FIVE new videos - four songs performed by 'George' along with one special 'Behind the Strings' segement giving viewers a peek into how he is brought to life.

Direct links -

"Pisces Fish" -George Harrison Marionette - "Pisces Fish"

"Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" -George Harrison Marionette - "Devil and The Deep Blue Sea"

Behind the Strings segment -George Harrison Marionette "Behind the Strings"

"That's The Way It Goes" - George Harrison Marionette - "That's The Way It Goes"

"Jai Sri Krishna" - George Harrison Marionette - "Jai Sri Krishna"

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[sgt. peppie]

George Harrison Marionette performing "Any Road"

why does his voice sound higher here?

[Unknown Delight]

Hi there Sgt....

The reason is probably the playback system i use ( tape).  The recording i performed to may have been a pitch higher then the CD listening public is used to...

Could also be the video capturing unit my friend used to convert the original videotaped version, but my guess is that it is more then likely the tape recorded audio.

Thanks for watching..and commenting!

[Unknown Delight]

Latest batch of photos, these from the video shoots this past Summer.

Enjoy!