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BBC 3 Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK

Agency

BBC Creative

Asylum Supervisor

Mark Curtis

The BBC’s campaign to welcome hit TV show Drag Race to the UK, saw it parade a pair of giant legs at Manchester Pride. We were commissioned to design and fabricate RuPaul’s famously long legs as a 12ft puppeteer-able rig, able to sashay along the march route with the occasional death drop to wow the crowds.

Illustrations were produced in-house for client feedback, before they were digitally sculpted. All aspects of the build, from engineering to textile pattern making were all planned out on computer first. A Plastazote lattice formed the structure of the legs, built around a lightweight aluminium frame. Soft foam formed the outer skin with lycra stretched over the top, to give an organic feel to the finish. A counter weighted trolley was engineered to take the majority of the weight, so the puppeteers could focus on just the performance.

We also fabricated a larger pair of static legs as a centre piece for the big Ru-veal of the Queens themselves. Each one were announced on stage to armies of fans by emerging from in-between Mama Ru’s legendary legs.