GROUCHO

SPITTING IMAGE PUPPET RESTORATION

 

Here’s a restored original Spitting Image Groucho Marx puppet head I worked on earlier this year. This one was certainly testing!

 

The initial email sent to me was of an in tact puppet head but when the customer removed him from storage he dropped him so it then became a much bigger project.

 

This foam latex puppet head was very rotten and needed lots of parts replacing and injecting to stabilise. To explain what it’s like to work with, it is like working on a piece cast from broken burnt toast covered in tissue paper, so it has to be done very carefully and in stages before the main break in the neck could even be joined back together. I then backed him up internally to create some strength and support. Once he was structurally sound I was able to put him on a stand to work on. I tried to rebuild him to his original forms as best as possible within budget but the foam had deteriorated very badly and lost a lot of volume. 

 

Sadly his eyes were too far gone to save so I reshaped some new ones from fresh foam and fixed them permanently to his eyelid mechanism lids. It’s never a good idea to use the mechanisms once the piece has started to deteriorate. 

 

I then filled and injected all the powdery foam inch by inch to stabilise the foam inside and then repaired the injection holes which was a laborious task. 

 

Matching his paintwork was a balance between matching his aged discolouration and trying to balance that with his original paintwork. 

 

The customer was very happy with the piece.