He has a body!!

Okay, I thought I would get started on making his body tonight... and I finished it!

First, I started by making a simple foam body to go inside.

This is my first time making a foam body for a puppet, but it was easily the simplest thing I have done on this project thus far.

Next came the tricky bit!  I knew from the start that I wanted this to be a glove arm puppet, my first, and I decided to use an old pull-over that no longer fits to save money on fabric.  Unfortunately, it didn't even occur to me that a pull-over doesn't have near enough fabric to make a glove arm puppet! Not even close!  And the material that is there is in small pieces because of all of the seams on the pull-over!  So, I had a dilemma. I didn't want to have to go out and try to buy or find fabric to match the head and the fleece I have left over from the previous puppet builds is no where near the right color.  So, I decided to go back into the hall closet, find another old jacket from my chubbier days (a 2XL, thankfully) and try to piece together my first ever glove arm puppet using the small bits of material I could pull from both jackets using my meager sewing skills (seriously, I had never even operated a sewing machine before I started making puppets a few months ago... my sewing skills are pathetic).  And do it in a way that looked like it was supposed to be that way!  

So... I stayed up all night and here's what I came up with...

The front:

The back:

And the entire thing with the foam body inside and the head pinned together:

Not bad, right?

(Sorry for the shoddy photos... but it's freaking 4a.m.!)

Head is covered!

Okay!  After a harrowing few hours doing battle with the sewing machine, the head is covered!  I made a number of errors, but to my amazement, it didn't turn out to be a total disaster!

From a distance, he looks pretty good!  I haven't attached the beak yet, I'm just holding it in these photos. 

It looks lighter with the flash on, but the lighting in my apartment is wholly inadequate.  You can see a bit here how uneven it is, making his head a bit lumpy. 

I accidentally cut and  sewed it a bit small and the seams don't line up quite right.  Well, they line up okay on the top, but I totally missed on the chin! D'oh!  Also, i accidentally squared off the jowls more than I intended to.

The beak wound up a bit lower than I expected once the fabric was wrapped around the foam, but that's okay.  Hopefully it will open and close a little easier that way.

But on the whole, he's looking pretty good!  I have to keep reminding myself that just a couple of months ago I had never made a puppet without a sock or a paper bag... and now I'm designing one without a pattern to work from!  

Stop motion!

Just for fun, here are a few little stop motion tests I did to test out some software.  Nothing fancy, just shot with a crappy old webcam on the computer desk.

This is N.I.T...

N.I.T. encounters a strange life-form... that takes a liking to him. 

And here's another I did with a couple of toys.  Watching her toys move around blows Emily's mind!

Bird head: Ready to sew!

Well, I have my fabric all pinned and ready... but the thread I bought is too light!  And Veronica is sick!  I supposed the bird's head will have to wait a bit.   But in the mean time, here are a few pics.

First, my incredibly expensive fabric sources!  The yellow vest was purchased at Goodwill for under $3 and the Old Navy fleece was mine before I lost weight!  I'm finally getting some use out of that old thing!

And a few shots of my duck's head all pinned up.  As soon as I get a chance, I will be getting the proper colored thread and removing the foam skull so I can get to sewing!  Wish me luck!

Covering the beak!

For tonight's adventure, I covered the beak with fabric!  It turned out pretty well... though not as well as I might have liked.  I have to keep reminding myself that this is my first attempt and a learning experience.  And as Veronica reminded me, Jim Henson's first puppets weren't perfect either.

In order to keep the fabric cost as low as possible (in case I screwed it up), I went thrift storing this evening and found a bright yellow fleece vest for $2.90.  Needless to say, it is no longer wearable!



In order  to keep the beak as seamless as possible,  I cut the fabric to the appropriate shape and used the hot glue gun to attach it.  Over all, it looks okay.  But upon closed examination the flaws are apparent.  The points of the beak are bunchier than I would have liked and on the right side of the top beak (pictured above) the yellow fleece and black felt didn't quite meet, due to a miscalculation on my part.




And here you can see the bunchy beak tips I mentioned.  Veronica thinks that the beak turned out really well, but I'm trying to think of ways to cover the flaws.  Maybe I can give him lips?  Or a mustache?  We'll see.

Beak plate!

And... he has a mouth plate!  Or would that be a beak plate?



It should be noted that this fine craftsmanship is due to my supreme mastery of the art of puppetry... and not in any way the result of several hours filled with an embarrassing amount of trial and error (and error... and error) or the complete destruction of my dining room.  Cough 




And on an unrelated note... I could use a drink! 

The clay knight and the soda bottle bird...

Well, my attempt to create a foam skull pattern in the shape of a soda bottle wasn't entire successful.    Apparently, you can't put four flat objects together with the edges cut at 45% angles and get a cylinder.  My geometry teacher would be so proud!  lol.  But in my defense, I had two little girls trying to destroy my apartment at the time!



The end kept a nicely rounded shape for the chin, so I'm still going to use it.  This bird will just have a square face.

Anyways... I decided to take my frustration out on a piece of clay and wound up meeting Sir Reginald of  Darburyshire.  He'll take his place with the other clay sculpts and await the coming of the Hobby Lobby mold-making kit and jumbo sized bottle of liquid latex.  That's when the REAL fun begins!  Good luck, Sir Reginald!

With Sir Reg baked and cooling, I was all set to go to bed.  So, of course, I decided to rough out a quick top for my soda bottle skull instead.  Who needs to sleep, right?  I didn't worry about rounding the head off, I'll try that with Soda Bottle mark II.  Instead I just gave my bird-to-be a pointy head.  I think I'm going to put the face at one of the corners and build the beak out from there.  

Skip and Starlet!

And here are some better photos of Skip and Starlet!

Current projects!

With all the real life craziness lately,we've gotten a bit behind on the blog updates, but here's what I've been up to...

Up first, this foam skull is the first stage of my first attempt to build a full bodied puppet!  That why it is, you know, first.

This has long been a dream of mine, as Sweetums is my favorite Muppet and, well, running around in a full bodied puppet costume seems like it would be a lot of fun.  

I used a fruit bowl as the basis for the skull pattern with a fair bit of success.  As you can see in the photo, it is a bit droopy and could use some wire for support.



Next up, I've recently taken up skulpting!  I'm actually kind of terrible at it, but that has never stopped me before!  The plan is to create molds from these guys from which I can cast latex puppet heads for hand puppets.  They are made from super sculpey with aluminum foil in the center for shape.



And, of course, my dragon is an ongoing work in progress.  He was made from Project Puppet's glorified sock puppet pattern.   Ain't he just so cute?!?



All of these things are new to me, so feel free to leave a comment and tell me exactly what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it!  

Center for Puppetry Arts

And finally the THIRD blog post of the one wonderful day of puppetry!

Jim Henson Exhibit

As promised pictures from the amazing Jim Henson Exhibit at the Center for Puppetry Arts! They're supposed to have more things coming in some time in 2013. Looking forward to it!