Shadow Puppets

It was mentioned to me how rigid and stiff movements can come from shadow puppets. I decided to explore it more and came up with a pretty interesting result.

The shadow monster is inspired by contortionists able to walk on their hands, with their feet looming on top, and the face is based off of that of 'Asphyxia' from 'Silent Hill: Homecoming'. While they look unnatural, they movements and position is very much possible for humans if you are flexible enough and have good upper body strength.

Line art for Asphyxia, by Kenzie LaMar.
A pretty face huh? Haha.The story behind Asphyxia's story is a rather sad one actually. A character named Nora was sacrificed by her mother to appease the gods that are often mentioned in the Silent Hill series.

'The numerous hands choking and groping Asphyxia's body portray how Nora's family abused her and most prominently how she was murdered. Nora also loved to read, particularly her favorite book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as seen in her photo. Having multiple arms, Asphyxia's form appears similar to that of the Caterpillar in the book and her "scream" is similar to how the Caterpillar blew smoke from his hookah at Alice...' Quote from Silent Hill Wikia.


That being said, Asphyxia reminds me a lot of the movie 'Human Centipede'. It's exactly what you're thinking. One only to be watched if you have a strong stomach.

The first ones top-heavy weight made it impossible to use him as a proper shadow puppet, since his top half kept leaning back.
Number two came out far more detailed and did work better that the first, although I could not get wires to actually move his legs more than once.

I went on to explore them by creating mini shadow monsters, scaling down the metal pipe with our lights wiring inside that is in front of me in the studio.

This is their final stage, without the icky masking tape taking away from their poor claw...hand...feet things.

I think the shadows look really pretty ~

We're gonna getcha!


The pattern of the shadow monsters body is quite nice. It can be rather intricate to do, and while drawing the puppets takes no more than a few minutes, with their pattern being random, cutting it out can take anything from 1 – 3 hours depending on the puppets size. It's based roughly off of the idea of its veins and arteries being able to be seen through their skin.

In the end, I wanted to do a little more to show the movement of my shadow puppet. I made this short clip, using the same techniques used for stop motion animation to get the result.


The wonderfully appropriate music is 'Hanyo' an extra track from 'Silent Hill 4: The Room'. © to the amazing Akira Yamaoka. Now, this music has been liked and disliked by different people. What do you guys think? Keep it in? or get rid of the creepy music?

I have also made these guys out of wire. The first one, I thought, was a bit of a flop. Looking at the photo though, I do like how his shadow makes him look like he's kinda on darkness fire or something... *weak laugh*

I continued my work with wire, and got a rather interesting mobile out of it. They're linear arrangement was supposed to replicate a hangman's gallows to keep with the horror theme but... i don't really think it shows much.

Sorry if the following images are hard to make out. They're of the shadows cast from the mobile and look really pretty when you see them in reality. I promise ~

A small video clip of the shadows in motion. Audio track belongs to Akira Yamaoka, titled 'Serious' an extra track from 'Silent Hill 4: The Room'.


I have also done a series of drawings in various mediums, base on my wire-mobile shadow minions. Or should that be, their shadows when they are actually moving? I stuck sheets of paper on the wall, hit the mobile and tried to draw...something. Instead of throwing up a whole bunch of what are, essentially scribbles up here, i've picked out my favorites.

There's also a birthday card design thrown in there.