At least once a week, I get an email from someone who wants a mannequin that moves. Since mannequins look like people, the assumption is that they can move or bend like people as well.
My mannequin partner in London, MannakinLtd. wrote an informative blog post that I have excerpted here which explains in detail about the flexibility of mannequins.
If the mannequin is made from fibre glass, then it is in a static pose and cannot move much apart from its arms can move from by its side to a little higher – by having a hinge like joint where the top of the arm meets the torso. This diagram shows how much (or how little) mobility fiberglass mannequins have.
This video shows how a production team used static (fibre glass) mannequins to imitate the dummies playing a keyboard. However we do sell a few fiberglass mannequins that are specially equipped to bend at the elbows.
And of course there are the wooden mannequins used for artist’s for sketching which range in size from miniature to life size.
If you need a mannequin (male, female or child) that is completely bendable, then your best option are the cloth mannequins, which either headless, faceless or have a realistic fiberglass face but cloth body.
