Gustav in the works

I've recently been working on a puppet of Gustav Courbet. Gustav was the first puppet I ever made and I wanted to remake him using my new improved puppet know-how. I'm trying to still keep the same silly feeling but upgrade the materials and quality at the same time. As you can see he is not finished. I will post a pic of the old one compared with the new one when I'm finished.

Gadsden vs. the Capitol

Another pic of Gadsden in action I found on the internet. It looks like Gadsden is going to eat the Capitol.

Gadsden says: DON'T TREAD ON ME

For the past few weeks I've been busy cooking up a new puppet creation. After receiving a suggestion from a friend of mine and reading about Bread and Puppet theater and the political messages of their puppets, I was inspired to create a puppet that would mix it up in the political arena. The message was simple: DON'T TREAD ON ME. So what better to convey this message than the rattlesnake from the Gadsden flag?

I did a few sketches based on the flag and then began on the armature.

Here's the head, a foam sculpture made with high density foam and contact cement.And here's the body. There is a tube of insulation foam connecting the many pieces of the body. I found that studying the actual anatomy of a snake went a long way in developing my foam armature.

And here is Gadsden! Unfortunately I was so busy I forgot to take more pictures of the process. I used taxidermy snake eyes for the eyes, antipill fleece for the skin, a plastic placemat for the tongue and model magic for the teeth.

And special thanks goes out to my darling little Objectivist Karly. She made the word banner on Gadsden.
Gadsden in action. The tail was made out of gatorade bottles filled with popcorn kernels. They produced a pretty good rattling sound. The crowd really loved the rattle. I believe I heard quite a few "Shake it baby"s as we walked by. This may have made Karly feel a bit uncomfortable since she controlled the tail.
And after a day of striking cuddly fear into the hearts of young children and small dogs, Gadsden and I settle down near the pool for a break. Check out the shirt on the guy behind me. It gives 3 wolf moon a run for its money.

Bartleby the Dragon

I just finished the first of what I hope will be a series of sock puppets. My hope is that I may be able to sell them at some point. I used a sock that I dyed green for the body and the features were mostly created out of fabric and poly-fil. The fins on the side of the neck have wire sandwiched between two pieces of extra thick interfacing so they are very posable. The next batch will probably use pingpong balls for eyes instead of styrofoam. Not that styrofoam is bad, but I am curious to see the difference between the two. And so without further ado, say hello to Bartleby the Dragon!

Puppet Stand

So I have gotten a lot farther on my project than this blog would let on and I really need to catch up. Things may end up being posted a little bit out of order so please bare with me.

A couple weekends ago I went home to get some help from my pop. He's got a well equipped wood shop and a lot of experience. It's always extremely helpful to have someone with experience give you a little help.

After realizing my work would be made a lot easier with the aid of a puppet stand, my dad and I set to work to make one. First thing to do was cut a base. He happened to have a nice piece of hardwood laying around that we could utilize. We cut it to size using a band saw.

Next was measuring to find the center.


We then cut a hole at the center for a pole fit in.


Then we fit the wooden dowel to the base to size it.


Next we crafted a small round piece to cap the dowel with.



Sanding.


The top is screwed in place.


Then the base is glued in place.

Yay stand!

Head and Mouth

Ok I got the head glued up and I have cut the bottom out.


At this point I suggest heading over to Swazzle.com and checking out the great Ratchet mouth tutorial there

My process was a little bit different but very close.

Here I am checking the fit of the red palette on the inside of the head.
I cut a hole once I've identified where the mouth should go.

Then I do a test to see if the mouth works. I wanted to give him a frowny mouth with a conservative amount of opening clearance to give a mumbling look. I'm not exactly sure if it will work out that way but the tests look good.


I create my finger grips out of craft foam and then cover it with cloth. The Ratchet tutorial suggests using spray adhesive but I think I would suggest just using contact cement. The spray adhesive shoots a bit like silly string. For me it was messy and hard to control. Hot glue might work as well.


I've attached the finger grips to the foam and also two more pieces of foam to create pockets for my fingers.

(Insert funny caption here)

I put the mouth glove into the mouth slot and secure it with contact cement. This isn't an exact science. It's difficult to get exact measurements for things like this so calling upon your Yoda Dagobah training may be necessary. The foam is pretty forgiving and you can always edit later but make sure to pin everything and do tests before gluing.

And here is the finished foam head. It seems to work pretty well.

A Shout Out to the Puppet Masters

I just wanted to give credit where it's do. I have been aided by some really awesome sources on the internet. Here they are:

www.projectpuppet.com

www.swazzle.com

www.thistledownpuppets.com

Thanks guys! I appreciate all your help!

The Body: continued

Ok so turns out that I made the body a bit too big, even for burly old Van Gogh. So I needed to trim it down....
So I start by drawing some guide lines to select the parts I want to cut....
And then I start cutting the foam off....
And then I reattach everything with contact cement. Tadaaah!
Notice I also cut out the neck hole. A razor blade and a sharp pair of scissors will go a long way.

It's Van GO TIME!

So it looks like I have embarked on a new puppet project - Vincent Van Gogh. My hope is that I will be able to use it in art lessons for children and possibly create some sort of educational entertainment thing as well. I started off with a sketch, and then from the sketch developed some patterns to create the basic shapes.



Creating puppets from foam is an interesting process; you have to conceptualize a 3d shape made out of two dimensional planes. I am using high density 1/2 inch foam I got from the fabric store. The head ended up using a similar pattern to that of an hour glass. The white shapes in the picture are the patterns that I used. I usually make a small scale mock up then I cut the full scale patterns and foam and hope for the best. I'm sure there's probably a more scientific approach. I just try to use the force.



After cutting the shapes out of foam I pin everything together to see how it fits.

Next up.... Gluing!