For 30 years I told people that I had been involved in making a walking version (man in a suit) of Yoda but had no evidence that such a version existed.  When they had asked for a walking version of Yoda for the end of the scene where he and Luke meet, My boss Stu (Freeborn) told them we didn't have time to build such a thing.  Once filming had started, Graham (Freeborn) was busy heading the Make-up department on set.  Kay (Freeborn) was with him.  Wendy Midener who worked with us creating the Yoda puppet version was also on set with Frank (Oz).  That left Stu and I in the workshop with 3 trainees...  Bob Keen,  David Barclay and Nick Dudman. When Stu thought of a walking version he was thinking of a 26" mechanical version and we had neither the man power or experience to create that at the time. 

Stu was already very occupied with issues over the prototype puppet mechanism.  When they asked me if I could come up with something, I took a leaf out of Graham's book...  looking for the simplest/fastest solution.  I pointed out that nobody knew how tall the trees were and as such, if Yoda was alone in the shot, nobody would notice if Yoda was oversize.  Deep Roy was already on the movie.  He was 36" tall and the best person for the job as he is a midget not a dwarf and walks normally.  But I couldn't do everything in the week we had as there were other responsibilities occupying my time.  So I said I would create a larger head if they got feet and hands made by the modelers and plaster shop.

Rather than start from scratch, I took one of the foam latex skins made for the puppet and chemically expanded it using diisooctyl phthalate.  I used that regularly (suspended in alcohol) on skins to compensate for the 8% shrinkage that foam latex skins had at that time.  I simply took the ration for that, divided by 24 and multiplied by 36 to scale the expansion up to the right size.  It worked out ok.  But expanded it was super soft and floppy.  I used plaster bandage to support it inside, made eyes from plastic spheres (glued into place) and Graham and I hair punched and art worked it late one night.  The hair was a bit precarious as the skin was very delicate.  We tried to handle it as little as possible.

I continued with other projects in the workshop and trainee Bob Keen looked after it on set.  It was a little puffy looking I thought.  But for the shot needed it was ideal.   Unfortunately Stu felt I undermined him by accommodating this and another request that he said we couldn't do.   Our relationship was never quite the same after that.

I first saw these photos in 2012, thirty three years after they were taken, when I was doing autographs for Official Pix at Stat Wars Celebration VI in Orlando.  I’m thrilled to have these photos to back up what I have been saying all these years.