Hair for Skip: The Gorilla Sacrifice!

Skip's hair!

Chuck: "In order to make the hair for my puppet, who is now named Skip, I found a stuffed gorilla at Goodwill for $.99."

The color, texture and length of the gorilla's fur was exactly what I was looking for.  And best of all... it was cheap!

Video: Scalping the Gorilla!

I had to do some cutting and trimming to get the right look.  I experimented with several pieces.

Pretty cute, eh?

What a mess!  

The gorilla gave his life for a noble purpose.  

And that purpose is to make Skip adorable!

Veronica handled the glue for me.  After my previous battles with the glue gun, I wasn't about to attempt to use it with one hand inside a puppet!

Emily was really thrilled when she saw the completed (and nearly completed) puppets!  Introducing them to her was the best part!

Video: Clowning around with Emily!

Our next objectives will be to finish off Veronica's puppet and to find some clothes that will fit better!  If you have any tips for creating female puppet hair, please let us know!

Comment setting fixed

Note: We have fixed the blog so that ANYONE can comment.  You don't have to have an account.  We apologize to the legions of people who have been clamoring to make a comment on the blog.  We know you're out there.  

Major update! Arms and Eyes!

Major update today!  Our puppets now have arms and eyes!

As the doll joints we purchased proved to be far too large for these puppets, we decided to try stitching the arms onto the body by hand.

We knew that the resulting "joints" would be a bit fugly, but these particular puppets are intended to be clothed so we didn't worry too much about that.

^ Ugly arm joints.  If you know a better way, please let us know!

Armed and ready for sight!

Here are some of the spoons we were experimenting with for the eyes.  We attempted various methods of cutting and filing the handle and ridge of the spoons.  Those seen on the right were a bit too narrow for the look we wanted.  Fortunately, Veronica found the perfect spoons at a local Chinese restaurant.  They are nice and round and very THIN, which makes them very easy to cut without cracking!  Yay for cheap spoons!

We followed the instructions on the trusty Youtube tutorial to apply the eye-lashes.

Not bad, eh?

All done with the eye-lashes, now for the eye-lids!

Chuck's puppet will have manly blue eye-lids.

Veronica's will have purple. 

Done!  That wasn't so hard, was it?

(Actually, it was!  It should be noted that Chuck burned himself every single time he touched the hot glue gun. And Veronica burned him with it at least once!)

^ This eye was a failed attempt.  As punishment, Chuck threw it across the room in disgust!  

Veronica mistakenly placed her pupil in the center of the eye... making it look stoned. 

Testing the eye focus on Chuck's puppet!

Veronica's puppet tripping out!

Ain't he cute?!?

Veronica corrected her pupil error!  

Don't they look happy!?!

Awe, they were made for each other!

Next time we'll get started personalizing the puppets with hair and clothing!