Hi, A year or so I posted photos of a project that I built. It started as a Dancing Harlequin, I quickly changed it to a Skeleton in a Box with articulated lower jaw for mouth movement. The routine is something like this...magician carries box to a table. Upon placing box, magician knocks on box and lid opens exposing skeleton. Skeleton stands up in box , looks left and right and somersaults out of box. He is capable of dancing, splits, handstands, etc. Very animated. All very animated, but too cutesy. I want to go dark with him. Maybe a backdrop with a cemetary, LED lightning flashes, etc. The miniature skeleton didn't make a great deal of sense, but what about an horned Imp or something similar? Maybe cloven feet? Making the box more like a prison with chains, etc. When he first makes his appearance, he can blow smoke (wish it was fire). I think maybe keep the skull head add horns and paint it red. Raggedy clothes. Maybe ringing bells on feet. I want him to appear trapped and angry, unwilling but unable to refuse commands. Does this sound interesting?
I have read this part of the forum for a long time and there are some very creative and dark thinkers out there. I would appreciate any and all input. I have a link to photobucket that shows him as a skeleton. His table was never completed as you will see, but I think the design would work. There is a photo of the small skull sans horns.
Again, any ideas would be truly appreciated,
Thanks to all!!
Veegates
http://s1002.photobucket.com/albums/af14......obucket/

What's the story? A child-size skeleton escapes from a box and does stuff.

What happened, to make it be confined in the box? What will it do, to attempt to stay free? What harm will it do, that makes you want to put it back? What will YOU have to do, to restrain it/put it back?

Hi Harley,
Those are all very good questions, I cannot think of a purpose, but I know there is an answer for all of them. That is why I am changing him from his skeleton costume to a trapped demon, but I have never trapped a demon so I am not sure how he would react. I wanted him to be more than a caged monkey doing acrobatics. The only parts of his body that he cannot move are his arms and hands (very important parts) so he cannot pull a knife or gesture. He can stomp, gyrate, etc.He can sit on the edge of his box, kick his feet, handstands. Sounds a bit like a spoiled child, but children (for the most part) are not that scary. But I want him to be.
Thanks!!

Could you post a video? Seeing the movement would help stimulate thinking.

Hi,
I no longer have the videos for several of my pieces. AS I wrote in a couple of my posts most of the pieces that I built have been cannibalized for other projects. The Harlequin for the most part survived. If you go to YouTube you can see a larger version on the Harlequin. He is a piece I built that is similar to Robert-Houdins' Antonio Diavolo. The harlequin performs basically the same routine, but he is in a box and the larger acrobat is on a trapeze. His link on Youtube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44UBXBlGmik
Also, there is a photo of the Harlequin in his old box wearing a skeleton costume (that I no longer want him to wear..kinda cheesy) which is on my Photobucket page.
Please take a peek. The photo page is http://s1002.photobucket.com/albums/af14......obucket/

This isn't very dark, but maybe you could use something like-

Almost 200 years ago, Jean Robert Houdin changed the face of magic.
He brought into vogue a style of performance still used today. A clockmaker and son of a clockmaker, he used clockwork to accomplish many of his effects, in addition to the sleight of hand stylings so popular now.
One of his creations was acrobat automaton named Antonio Diavolo that did acrobatics on a trapeze bar.
The impossibility of a mechanism doing the intricate movements that this figure could do helped make this one of the highlights of his show.
This type of device is seldom seen anymore. The amount of work is daunting, and computer driven moters are much simpler to use to accomplish the same look.
So with no small amount of pride, I bring you something seldom seen in 200 years, a recreation of one of the marvels of the father of modern magic.

Hi Magus,
Thank you for the idea.
What has happened was a while back I got on a Robert-Houdin kick. I built his Orange tree and Antonio Diavolo (he is on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44UBXBlGmik ), and his Harlequin. After building these pieces, I knew I would never be able to perform them so they sat in my basement and their condition began deteriorating. I am trying to put them back together. Antonio Diavolo is going (hopefully) to be restored and sold, the orange tree is in pieces, but The Harlequin is still basically complete. I am working on putting to gether a dark show and after all of the work invested in all of these pieces I would like to incorparate at least one. I considered turning Diavolo dark and putting simulated flames under his trapeze something like a Diantes Inferno, but that seemed kind of silly. Why would anything be performing acrobatics at the gates of hell? So, back to the Harlequin, I know there must be a story about a Demon of some kind trapped in a box. Because the Harlequin has such life like movements I know he would work. I have already built for the show a Satyrs head, spirit cabinet and a version of Frame of life and death. I have a levitating Skull with moving mouth in a large glass dome, rapping hand. Nothing terribly dark, but would like to have a few very dark pieces. I want to perform this show. But I still think the Harlequin is realistic enough and if I perform him well enough, with the proper story I think it would work.
I can build most anything, but creativity in story form doesn't happen for me,
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Your work is superb.

Perhaps, though, rather than try to sell the piece to the audience as an actual demon in a box, you should present it as a bizarre artifact that is itself over 200 years old. Legend suggests that this piece was in fact built by a demon in a wager with a clockmaker.

The clockmaker proposed to create a golden clock that, when it hourly rang, would release souls from purgatory into heaven. The demon, however, created a piece that took a life with its every performance. Upon the first performance of the demon clockwork, it took the life of the clockmaker. Thus, in one stroke, the demon won the wager and stopped the building of the wonderful golden clock.

The piece still works, and if you dare risk the consequences, I will show to you the last thing the clockmaker ever saw on earth.

Something along those lines.

As marvellous as your pieces are, they are automata (magic in itself, to be sure). It would be best to infuse the piece with a story, atmosphere, and history rather than try to convince an audience that they are watching an actual demon.

The elegant, near-human movement of your work would thereby be filled with horror and fascination. The more human it seems, the more demonic it appears, the more chilling your performance will be.

Beyond that, if you could interact with it at one moment (the way you speak to Antonio Diavolo and he nods to you)--especially if this came towards the end of the performance--you would plant the seed in the audience's mind that the little creature is actually sentient (and perhaps a real demon) without ever saying so.

If you say it is a demon, the audience won't believe. If you say it is a clever clockwork, and then it seems alive, the audience will convince themselves that there is more to it than you dare say.

When they call for the encore, you excuse yourself, saying you dare not tempt fate twice in one evening.

Prof BC,
That is genius!
Perfect, I make my living being a clockmaker and an automaton restorer.
Believe me some of the pieces I have restored seem to have taken a bit of life from me!
I could give his "prison box" a Steampunk look with maybe a few gears (wheels) that turn when the box opens. Maybe have an old clockwork mechanism as a prop that strikes one time on a large bell and upon the strike look at the audience and ask if everyone is still alive and well.
I will keep you posted on progress.
Wonderful idea of yours!
Thank you very much,
Veegates.
Also, thank you for the positive words on my work.

Veegates,

What a romantic little guy you have there! My favorite part was the interaction between the two of you. It is a treat to see it doing its wonderful actobatics on its own but after a while, it becomes a little like watching something mechanical in a music box. That little interaction when you speak to it and it turns to you was a little spooky even on such a handsome little guy. I would have loved to see more of that.

I liked the idea of making an imp/satyr demon only because there is something in that that is esthetically beautiful to me. A word of caution would be that imps and things of the sort can look too Ren Faire and could potentially loose its spook factor. Demons are far more terrifying when they look like us. If I would place myself in your audience, the more human it appears, the more terrifying yet relatable it becomes to me. There is something creepy yet engaging about a demonic child. I would fall for it upon first sight as something real and evil. If the head would rotate showing another- even more evil face in the back or even if the eyes would roll to the back leaving behind white or vacant eyes- it would appear that something far more wicked has interupted your session. I would be completely creeped out by that. I wouldnt know whether to stay and see what happens next or get the hell out of there! The possibilities in that would surely haunt even after the show ended. If you would allow me to say so, perhaps less circus and more of a medium by which the dead is contacting us. Maybe a way for it to answer your questions with a yes or a no without words?

I am not familiar with how much you can do with automata but with just what I have seen in your pictures and video, I am sure it isn't beyond your capabilities.

Prof BC~ That story line is brilliant! I would pay to see that played out in person without hesitation.

Vanity Wilde