Rat King

I created these rat puppets for a show I'm currently workshoping, in-progress title is "Rat King" but I'd like to come up with something more mysterious. The subject of this show is a rat king, a real-life phenomena where rats will get stuck together via their tails and strugle until they starve. While working on the script and the visuals, I started with a lot of photos and articles on the subject.

• Wikipedia
• Medium: Rat Kings…What Are They, Really?
• Mental Floss: An (Almost) Comprehensive History of Rat Kings
• YouTube: Rats Found With Tails Tied Together in Eastern Estonia
• PDF: Rat Kings in Estonia, abstract

When I originally devised the visuals for the show, I was imagining people in rat costumes -

- which then shifted to rat masks -

- until I remembered how much I love puppets and how strongly I've been wanting to make my own puppet show for a long time. So I reimagined my concept with puppets, and began sketching to figure out how to show this many rats onstage at once with a very limited number of puppeteers (preferably one).

My first thoughts involved a shadow play, with puppets held by sticks hidden behind a sheet. But then I figured, why not remove the lighting issue and allow the show to be performed anywahere regardless of lighting constraints? But I decided to stick with the same method that shadow puppets use - sticks! I chose to built each 2d puppet on top of a pole, each of which would slot into a frame on the floor and would stand on their own. Then when puppeteering the individual rat, I could hold it from the back or take hold of the stick if it needed to exit the frame. In the middle would be the knot, possibly on its own stick but it may just hang in between the rats, supported by the ropes of the tails.

Another important aspect of the show is that I wanted to cut the tails for real. In the script, the rats must cut their own tails off to escape, and while my original ideas working with actors meant expensive sewn tails, working on a small scale means that they ccan be simple pieces of rope. Which can be cheaply bought, attached, cut, and replaced. So each rat, and also the ball of tails, need to be made in such a way that the tails can be removed and re-attached for each show.

To keep them as cheap as possible, I'll be using cardboard, scrap fabric, and materials from the hardware store.

I want to make them fluffy using scrap fabric and yarn. One of the driving themes for this show is texture, I want to highlight the unnerving nature of the sharp (or not-so-sharp) instrumetns that I'll be cutting their tails off with by making everything feel very soft and natural. Through soft yarn fur, rough rope tails, and cold shiny metal, I want it to be a tactile experience for the viewer even if they aren't actually feeling the puppets themselves.

Vintage Rat Poison Ads as Art Style Reference

Making the rats

I started off by making a template to cut all the rats from. The legs were cut off seperately.

I planned on covering the bodies withfabric and yarn, but still wanted there to be detail where the carboard would show through. So the rats got a couple coats of paint with wsome blue highlights.

I always love adding many layers of texture and color to my puppets. Even if the audience can't pick out the individual patterns, you register the added detail and it makes everything feel much more real. The legs started out with pink, then got a dry brush layer of tan and grey, and i finished them off with a splatter paint of red and blue.

One fun side-effect of the eyes being thin cardstock - light shines through! I don't have any specific plans to use this right now, but it's a fun feature to have.

Now it was time for assembly. I gave the rats a yarn border, which hides the unpainted cardboard edge and makes their silhouette a little softer. Each rat has their legs glued in at slightly different angles, for some variety.

Now for my favorite part, adding scrap fabric "fur"! This is a tchnique and look that I 've been toying with a lot recently, I really love the layering of scrap fabrics and yarns of different textures and colors. Similarly with the paint job, the varriation blends together and doesn't look too busy, but it pulls your eye into it. The fluffy texture will also make them more life-like, maybe even a little cuddly.

Working with three different yarns and at least six colors of fabric, each rat has a slightly different palette only visible if you look really closely.

The tails were attached with wire, partically as a temporary fix as I tested how they would look once all arranged together. I knew that the tails would need to be removeable one way or another - with my plan originally being to cut them off and replace them after each show.

Rat stand

Add photos here of how the rats attach to the poles!!!

Now it's time for the frame. Thing that will,you know, actually make them look like a rat king. I had this very distinct vision in my head of all eight rats spaced out evenly around a center knot, and each would be on its own pole that could be picked up and shaken around. After attaching each rat to their poles, I did a few layout tests of how this would look.

These tests really made me see how difficult it would be to find a balance between how far apart I wanted the rats to be, and how far I could physically get them while restrained by the lengths of the poles. I also realized I would have to cut most of these down. I decided to make them two feet apart.

By laying a piece of cardboard where I wanted the stand to be, I was able to mark the angles and loccations of each pole. I used these rough marks to determine a constant angle and distance from the center, then re-positioned the poles so they all lined up in order to check my work. These marks were then transfered over to the piece of wood used as the stand.