Stink Bug Cloud

DGotlieb

Active Member
Working on a children's theatre piece and the director wants the stink bug to have visible farts.
He has asked the costume designer to rig something into the costume. Both the costume designer and I are stumped on a viable idea.

Has any one ever had to rig up something like this? Or have any clever ideas.

So far we have discussed but not really tried some how getting a can of haze into his coat that is remotely triggered.
Or maybe some how spray a puff of talcum powder?
 
If you are going to go with a cloud of powder do not use Talcum.
According to Actors Equity the most hypo-allergenic material to use for dust is Rye flour. Talc has too many health related issues not the least of which is the presence, although minute, of Asbestos fibers.

You might even try dying the rye flour green with food coloring then drying it out again might work, I don't know.
 
I've seen farting dragons done with green SMOKE ONLY pyro (no sound, no flash). A qualified pyrotechnician should be able to help you get that sorted-out and done safely. The smoke color can be controlled based upon the pyro chemicals used.
 
What about mixing some green and yellow powder paint together to make the dirty green-brown color, pouring that into a rocket blower (yes, I'm pretty sure that's what these are called), attaching with string or other means to a costume and squeezing when the effect is desired?

Another idea would be to attach some sort of canister containing the colored powder to the end of a can of compressed air, as in the electronics air duster cans, and blast the air when desired.

Seems like a small enough scale for being part of a costume. Rocket blower might not give you the "oomph" you're looking for, but canned air might. I apologize if this ends up being too stupid for its intended usage...
 
What about mixing some green and yellow powder paint together to make the dirty green-brown color, pouring that into a rocket blower (yes, I'm pretty sure that's what these are called), attaching with string or other means to a costume and squeezing when the effect is desired?

Another idea would be to attach some sort of canister containing the colored powder to the end of a can of compressed air, as in the electronics air duster cans, and blast the air when desired.

Seems like a small enough scale for being part of a costume. Rocket blower might not give you the "oomph" you're looking for, but canned air might. I apologize if this ends up being too stupid for its intended usage...

Actually that reminds me that we did a holi festival color run and have left over powder from that... I may cut up an old blood pressure cuff and see how well that will puff out the powder which gives me the added length of tubing to maybe hide the mechanism.
 
Maybe a plain fogger plus some green light?

This MicroFogger 2 looks rather promising for the fogger part, at least at first glance. I have absolutely no experience with the gizmo or the company hawking it, so don't take this as a specific recommendation or anything of that nature.
 
How many farts we talking here? One fart? A fart every five minutes? I’m thinking the concern of having a bunch of potentially slick powder all over the stage. Plus the logistics of refilling the fart mechanism.

I love that I can post this kind of thing in all seriousness here
 
Surprised no one has mentioned this.

Can't remember if the can is built like spray paint, but if it is you could get one of these or similar and rig up a pull wire to trigger it... maybe something like a bike brake cable
 
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How many farts we talking here? One fart? A fart every five minutes? I’m thinking the concern of having a bunch of potentially slick powder all over the stage. Plus the logistics of refilling the fart mechanism.

I love that I can post this kind of thing in all seriousness here

Right? Gotta love our job some time. I think it's needed 4-6 times in an hour performance. So in my tests with the powder, I tried flour and it wasn't very noticeable, so I switch to the color holi powder I played with it for a while and have yet to run out of powder. I can get just a little wisp that isn't super visible but doesn't leave much on the stage holding the bulb tube up. Significantly more bulb down but then it does leave a spattering of color on the stage. However I was also covered in purple powder (the first color I found). So maybe if i use green, the color of the costume it may not be super noticeable, but over a 3 week run I worry about discoloring the costume.

Surprised no one has mentioned this.

Can't remember if the can is built like spray paint, but if it is you could get one of these or similar and rig up a pull wire to trigger it... maybe something like a bike brake cable

I'm not sure how easy it would be to hide a can in his costume especially as spray cans like to be vertical, because of course the director came up with this brilliant idea a week before tech so the costume was already basically done. I wonder if I can get the fog to travel thru a tube and still work...
 
So costume designer has vetoed the powder options.

I had an old diffusion can. So tried to see if I could reroute the spray. thru a 4' straight 1/2" pvc tube a majority or the fog comes thru. but as soon as I tried to scale down to a flexible 1/4" tube to hide into the coat jacket maybe 25% of it came thru in an almost invisible wisp.

So I'm back to square one.
 
Can you hide a bigger ID tube in the costume? What kind of jacket? could the costumer sew a pocket into the bottom of the liner for the spray can? He just reaches back and sprays it out a slit in the jacket with clever blocking that takes sight lines into account?

Unfortunately with this timeline it may be just the pantomime and a sound effect... Bummer when these things happen last minute.:cry:
 
I was struck with the idea of a hem marker this morning. my mom used to have a little tool that you put chalk in. There was a tube with a bulb on the end like a blood pressure cuff. You set the height then turned as squeezing the bulb and the chalk blew out to mark the hem. Well... what if you had a small container, say a medicine bottle or something similar. You run a tube out of the bottle to the 'butt' on the costume. You run a tube into the bottle from a bulb sewn into the costume near the hand so it can be squeezed by the actor. Fill the bottle with dyed green rye flour, or just the flour, Insta-Fart.
 
Not using powder is an unfortunate limitation. :/

A tiny air canister and a small electric valves switched with a wireless dimmer (which I know you have) will give you propulsion for something. This still leaves you with figuring out what, exactly. The timeframe is a drag, for sure.

Could the actor reliably be in particular locations identified with markers? Perhaps the effect could be somehow achieved externally, not from within the costume?
 
Working on a children's theatre piece and the director wants the stink bug to have visible farts.
He has asked the costume designer to rig something into the costume. Both the costume designer and I are stumped on a viable idea.

Has any one ever had to rig up something like this? Or have any clever ideas.

So far we have discussed but not really tried some how getting a can of haze into his coat that is remotely triggered.
Or maybe some how spray a puff of talcum powder?

Years ago I had to make a pair of pants that could "fart green smoke" for a chili cookoff event. I had finished the prototype when the effect was cut from the show but it used SpectraSmoke cookies from TriEss Science. However that is still a pyro effect and probably a pain in the ..... to deal with. I would look at the tiny foggers from Look Solutions. they are battery operated and can run wireless on cue and they heat up on demand. they could be added to a costume with relative ease but a lot would depend on the costume design and you can't obstruct the output nozzle in any way or that can damage the machine. there is some haze in a can type products but they would probably be a lame effect.
 
There are some really good ideas in here, unfortunately the clock struck midnight and we open tonight. I think I was really close with the powder but just couldn't get the costumer on board. Maybe next time I'll have the lead in time and budget to add a mini fogger.
Thanks everyone.
 

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