The foundation of all great puppets is their character. What is their personality? Why do they do what they do? Once that is established, you begin to design them so that their physical appearance conveys that character. This may take some work and some re-working to get just the right look. Even with the best design, however, the puppet can take on a life of its own during the building process and the character can become even more concrete in surprising ways.
I will use Jammer, the orangutan for Chimp TV as an example. He was designed by the multi-talented Pasha Romanowski of Project Puppet. Now Jammer is a hard rocking orangutan that is high energy and has bad hearing due to years of loud music. He has a slightly crazy edge to him. In one of the original designs, below, you can see that the character is starting to take shape. The rock elements are there, but the energy isn’t quite reflected yet.

In the final design, the character is defined further and given more energy by the crazy look in the eye and the large teeth that give him that crazy smile.

As he was being built, little things came into play that gave him that definite character. In shape, he actually became a hybrid of the two designs above, but with the spirit of the final design as seen in the teeth and eyes.

So you can see, puppet building is an involved process to get to the heart of a character. Because the better a character is designed, the better he will translate to an audience. Puppetry is visual, and if the puppet can give clues to his character before he even moves, the puppeteers job becomes more effective.

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After much work, Babs and Nan, the Chimp TV puppets, are nearly completed. I thought I’d show some updated process photos because I think they really look great. Sometimes when you’re working on a project, things get very tough and the results can be a bit iffy. Not this one. I really think I gave my all to these puppets and I could not be happier with the results. Let’s hope that they do Chimp TV justice!

This is a shot of Babs with her lips and wig pinned on to see how they are gonna look.

Here is Nan with one arm pinned on to make sure the length is good.

To finish off Babs’ hands, I added some press-on nails for that girly look.

I made Nan’s knuckles look old by adding these lines with thread.

Here is an almost complete Babs checking out the light of day. (It can get kinda stuffy down in the studio)

And here is Nan, nearly complete, posing in a rather Shakespearean sort of way.

Tags: Projects by Philip
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I am making the final preparations for the unknown artist show. The Red Panda was completed a while back and he is going into the silent auction. All of the proceeds will go to the Blue Ridge Autism Center. It is a great cause, and I am happy to be involved. It’s also going to be a good marketing venue for me. On the night of the reception, I’m going to have several of my puppets on display in the gallery at the Jefferson Center here in town. It should be lots of fun. I’ll show some photos when I get the chance.

Tags: General Stuff, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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Just wanted to take a second to show off a few photos of Babs and Nan now that they are mostly fabricated:

Here is Babs. She’s looking pretty good. She just needs some lips and a nice blonde wig.

And here is Nan with her body. You can see an ear and a hand in the shot. She also needs a wig and a little snaggle tooth.

This is quick shot of me trimming out Jammer’s hands.(Jammer is the puppet I talked about in the previous post. He’s a hard-rockin’ Orangutan)

And here he is in all his glory. This was one of the fastest builds I’ve ever done. He was completed in under three days! And let me tell you, it was a true marathon, but I am totally happy with the results. I can’t wait to see him in action!

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I think it’s another Chimp TV puppet. And I also think he was completed rather quickly. O.K. so I KNOW he was completed very quickly but in our short time together he became my favorite. I’ll show more of him later.

Tags: Projects by Philip
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I have been honored to be asked by Kanja Chen of Chensational Puppets to help him in building some puppets for his Chimp TV project. The first two are from a spoof of “Dog the Bounty Hunter” called “Ape the Debt Collector”. I am building Babs, a rather well endowed baboon, who is Ape’s wife, and Nan, Ape’s grandmother. Here are the initial sketches for them:

Here are some photos from the build so far:

Here is Babs’ “skull”.

This is a nice profile with some features pinned on. She’s looking just like the drawings which is always very exciting for me.

This is a rough mock-up of Nan’s head in polyfoam.

And this is the final head in reticulated foam.

Here are the basic puppets awaiting fabrication. Stay tuned for more…

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