Dinosaurs of China, Lakeside Arts
A New Species. Peacock Feathers. Three Weeks. This Is What Crowdfunding Built.
Commission: Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham | Dinosaurs of China Exhibition | Feathered Walk-Around Dinosaur Puppet
The Brief
Lakeside Arts — the arts and cultural centre at the University of Nottingham — was hosting Dinosaurs of China: an exhibition documenting new species discoveries that have fundamentally changed our understanding of dinosaur evolution, and in particular the relationship between dinosaurs and modern birds.
Their education department wanted to bring those discoveries to life. Not on a screen, not in a display case, but in the room — a walk-around puppet character based on one of the newly documented species, built for direct visitor interaction and capable of making the science tangible, immediate and unforgettable.
They launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the build. They came to Creature Encounters to deliver it.
The Design
The design brief was rooted in science. The Dinosaurs of China exhibition documented species whose fossilised remains revealed, for the first time, clear evidence of feathers — closing the evolutionary gap between dinosaurs and birds and reshaping palaeontology. The character needed to reflect those discoveries: not the scaly, reptilian dinosaur of twentieth-century imagination, but the feathered, bird-like creature that the fossil record actually describes.
The solution was peacock feathers — trimmed and punched directly into a foam rubber skin to create the creature's mane and tail. The result is a character that carries the scientific accuracy of the exhibition into every visitor interaction: a living demonstration, in the room, of what the fossils in the cases are actually telling us.
It is, in the most literal sense, a piece of scientific communication built from foam and feathers. It is also, by any measure, extraordinarily beautiful.
The Build
The foam rubber skin was developed to receive the punched feathers cleanly and hold them securely across the demands of repeated daily visitor interaction. The mechanical structure gave the character a moving mouth, a moving brow and a false arm illusion — the combination of mechanisms that allows a performer to create the impression of a complete, living creature from a partial rig.
The false arm illusion deserves a note: it is one of the most elegant solutions in walkabout puppet performance, allowing a single performer to suggest a fully embodied creature without the weight and restriction of a full suit. In a character whose aesthetic is built on lightness and movement — on the bird-like qualities of the feathered dinosaurs — it was exactly the right choice.
The Specifications
Moving mouth. Moving brow. False arm illusion. Peacock feather mane and tail, punched into foam rubber skin. Walk-around visitor interaction character.
Build time: Three weeks.
A Note on Crowdfunded Commissions
The Dinosaurs of China puppet was funded by a public crowdfunding campaign — a model of commissioning that is increasingly used by arts and cultural organisations to fund character builds that sit outside their core budget. We are experienced in working with this funding model and understand the particular constraints and timelines it creates.
If you are an arts organisation, museum, gallery or educational institution with a character build in mind and a funding challenge to solve, we would be very glad to discuss the options — including phased builds, scaled specifications and alternative funding approaches.
Thinking About Something Similar?
If you are planning an exhibition, educational programme or visitor experience that would benefit from a live character encounter — whether a single walk-around puppet or a full suite of interactive creatures — we would love to talk.
We have extensive experience building characters for arts, educational and cultural contexts, where the brief is not just entertainment but meaning — where the character exists to make an idea tangible, a discovery real, or a story worth remembering. We understand that kind of brief, and we build for it.
To arrange an informal, no-obligation Discovery Call with Jamie and Michael, please use the Enquire button below.
Creature Encounters are designers, makers and performers of extraordinary puppet experiences, based in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. We have delivered bespoke puppet characters for arts organisations, museums, educational institutions, visitor attractions, theatre and live events across the UK and internationally, for clients including Lakeside Arts / University of Nottingham, Away Resorts, Mark Thompson Productions, Atomic London / Greater Anglia Trains, Vectis Ventures / Robin Hill Country Park, Vectis Ventures / Blackgang Chine, Animal Madness Ltd, Big Brum Theatre in Education, and the Remal International Festival in Kuwait.
