The Seagull

Designer and Maker DR FRANKEN-GULL

I made this seagull puppet for ‘Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside!’, a short comedy performance created by myself and Evan Stead.

The Seagull is made from majority reclaimed materials, including a carved polystyrene body rendered in cotton fabrics, head is made of worbla with a moving beak mechanism, and the wings, constructed from mountboard and individually made feathers, have two mechanisms to open out and flap.

In the show he is revealed to be ‘Dr Franken-gull’, an mastermind inventor that uses a machine to create a family of his own with his robot wife.

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside! - 2024/25

Performance Designed, Devised and Made by Robin O’Connor Lowe and Evan Stead

Seagull Puppeteer - Nico Venables

Photography by Alexis Evans and Robin O’Connor Lowe

Performed at RWCMD and Porters Theatre

The Process

Design for Seagull puppet, including mechs

Initial drawings and designs

  • Card and tape maquette

  • Carved body from reclaimed polystyrene with hot wire and metal brushes.

  • Used a wire brush to shape the polystyrene body

  • Sculpted gull’s head with clay

  • Worbla sculpt of Gull’s head, with opening and closing beak mechanism

  • Patterning fabric render onto head. I frayed the edges to give impression of feathers

  • First try at the wing mechanisms.

  • Worlba feet.

  • PVC pipe and dowel legs, with worbla feet

  • Body rendering samples with frayed muslin.

  • Beginning to render the body.

  • Feathers Individually made from wire glued between fabric, attached to mountboard wings.

  • Wings painted with acrylic

  • Final wing mechanisms

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