Studio MDHR explains the process of building the marionette in the Cuphead Collector’s Edition

Chad Moldenhauer, Studio MDHR Co-founder and Art Director: One of the special things about the marionette in the Collector’s Edition is that it’s not only an homage to the kinds of toys you might see in the 1930s, but in many ways is a toy that could have come from the era. The artisans at Rici Marionettes in Prague were immediately in tune with our desire to really go all-in on something that felt hand-crafted in the same era Cuphead was inspired by, and poured themselves into a design made largely of fabrics, wood, and string. The result is that each marionette really does feel completely unique in a lot of fun, subtle ways – much like toys in the pre-assembly-line era would!

In terms of capturing Cuphead’s features, we worked with the team at Screen Novelties in Los Angeles to establish a design for the puppet that is very similar to the version of Cuphead you see in the game trailers they worked on – purposefully a little far afield of the “on-model” version of Cuphead in an off-kilter way that many of the earliest branded toys were.