Bringing Paddington to Life: Building a Real-Life Paddington Puppet
what’s the Brief?
For The Paddington Bear Experience, Stitches and Glue was given a particularly exciting challenge: to create a real-life Paddington puppet completely recognisable as the much-loved bear audiences know from the STUDIOCANAL films that could perform in sync with pre-recorded dialogue. Such a challenge to bring a largely CGI-created character to life in the real world — but of course, the team at Stitches and Glue embraced it!
Where did you start?
The process began on the drawing board. We developed a series of design pages exploring different ways Paddington could be brought to life as a physical puppet, before the client selected their preferred solution, seated on a pile of suitcases with our puppeteer hidden within them.
"He actually looked at me!"
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"He actually looked at me!" -
going back to the source
Recreating such a familiar character isn't simply a matter of getting the overall shape right. The smallest details matter. To make Paddington's famous duffel coat as authentic as possible, we visited the STUDIOCANAL archives to examine the original coat from the film.
Seeing the original piece first-hand allowed us to closely match the details that make the coat so recognisable — from the duffel fabric and tartan lining to the distinctive toggles.
Multiple coats were needed throughout the experience to build the excitement of seeing Paddington in real life soon! As you visit other rooms in 32 Windsor Gardens you see his coat and hat hanging on pegs, or needing a wash after a messy painting adventure!
What’s underneath Paddington?
An excellent question! Beneath the beautiful and meticulously trimmed and groomed fur suit and costume elements is the carefully crafted mechanism that brings Paddington to life. The puppeteer is secreted in the suitcases beneath him and articulates the jaw, head and arm/wrist cables using triggered handles.
from mechanism to character
And finallY the engineering disappears once thE fur, costume and finishings are added.
Lots of painstaking attention to detail went into sourcing precisely the correct colour and weight of the wool for the duffel coats - eventually working closely with a Yorkshire mill to produce exactly what was required. Similar efforts went into identifying and sourcing the pocket, coat and sleeve lining (which were all different!). And the hardest to find were the hood lining and the ribbon around his hat - we ultimately digitally printed these onto suitable fabrics.
And the FUR? Happily we were able to source this from a UK supplier who had just the right amount for the puppets that we built.
how many did you make?
Shhhh! But we did make two. Having a second Paddington means there is always a back-up puppet ready to step in, helping to keep the experience running and avoiding the dreaded show stop. We’d be heartbroken if any of the guests missed their chance to meet him in person!
Matching something audiences already know
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges was that we weren't creating a new character — we were bringing to life someone that audiences already know and love.
Paddington has such a familiar look that even the smallest details matter. His proportions, expression, fur, hat and, of course, that famous blue duffel coat all needed to come together to make him instantly feel like Paddington.
And unlike seeing him on screen, guests at The Paddington Bear Experience would be meeting him in the real world and at close quarters.
There was nowhere for those details to hide! That’s why we went to such lengths throughout the build, from studying the original film coats at the STUDIOCANAL archives to developing the internal mechanisms and refining the finished character. It wasn't enough for our puppet simply to look like Paddington — once he began to move and perform, he needed to feel like him too.
Seeing a character we'd spent so long studying and building finally come together as Paddington was a pretty special moment.
