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!

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!