Building Giants

These pages are ideas for easily building giant figures for any reason you want. Giants used to be a common feature of celebrations, festivals etc, but they have fallen out of common use in recent times. 

We in Sidmouth decided to reinvigorate these traditions and build our own, so these pages describe how we got on.

There are two types of 'builds' that we've done, so we've tried to describe them as logically as the pictures can help. Making a head is described first, and then two 'bodies' one simple and the other more complex but much bigger. Neither is over 4 metres high and when building your own, take account of where you will carry it to avoid touching overhead obstructions such as power lines and telephone cables. 

The head was a basic papier-mâché construction, but as time went by it was heavily augmented to one made of fibre glass to incorporate shoulders. 

The first 'body' is just a pole attached to a harness which someone can carry around. Most of the appearance is made up of the material wrapped around. Once put on, the wearer can't really do much else without taking it off so it does have limited use, but is easy to make a variety of giants and to make other creatures, the wearer decorating themselves too sometimes.

The second 'body' is self standing, and while much bigger was designed to be assembled and disassembled easily. This is much more difficult to carry, but can be put down easily and the carrier can easily take a rest before moving on or being replaced.

We've added other items to giants to make them more fun and these are in the final section, they aren't essential but see if it suits your giant.

Have a look, have a go, if you make one do let us know, and if you make improvements or have an alternative idea, then we'd also like to know to share and encourage making.