I’ve been a big admirer of illustrator Cory Godbey ever since I stumbled upon his blog about a year ago. I love his style and character design–particularly his dragons.

I approached Cory about a month ago and told him that I thought his designs would make wonderful puppets. He agreed and created the watercolor of a dragon that you see above. (I’ve always wanted to create a dragon puppet but never had the occasion). Over the next several weeks, I am going to bring this dragon to three-dimensional life…and document the process here on the blog, so stay tuned…

Tags: Projects, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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I recently had a chat with Zack Buchman, the creative force behind Furry Puppet Studio, and asked him some questions about his company and his puppet design process.  I really respect his work and his devotion to his art.  He’s also a fellow judge on this year’s Puppet Contest by Project Puppet.  Here is the third and final installment of the interview:

PH: What has been your favorite puppet project so far?

ZB: It’s difficult to name one favorite, because there were so many great ones over the years.  Many of my clients actually became good friends, which gives a project a whole new dimension.  One of them is Spencer Halpin, the director of “Mortal Kombat”.  We bonded immediately and every business meeting after that felt like a date!

My favorite projects are when I am asked to design a whole cast of characters.  This kind of scenario is typically where a designer gets the freedom to leave his artistic signature.

PH: What has been your most challenging project?

ZB: We are very experienced in building sophisticated puppets so what usually challenges us the most is not the acutal fabrication, but designing a really good character.

One recent character that comes to mind is the Blue Viking.  There is lots of detail in this creature, yet his expression and composition are still so simple and clear.  I have many stories to tell about the process of creating him; as with many of my characters, it all started in a strange dream.  I feel so lucky I can take creatures I meet in my dreams and bring them to the real world.  A huge catastrophe occurred when I  was working on his helmet, the metal powder I was using just spread all over the studio, covering everything, including me.  Everything was covered in a thin layer of silver–my studio looked like a music video from the 80’s.  Luckily all of the puppets were well packed and protected and no real damage was caused.

PH:  Do you have any big, exciting projects in the works that you can tell me about?

ZB: We are not allowed to disclose details about most of the projects we’re involved in until they’re released.  One exciting project I am allowed to talk about involves a huge hay monster and a cast of awesom barnyard characters, with lots of mechanical features.  Stay tuned!

PH: What does the future hold for Furry Puppet?  Where would you like to go with your work and what would you like to accomplish in the world of puppetry that you haven’t yet?

ZB: We would like to keep creating with as much freedom as we have now, building worlds and bringing life to foam in our own distinctive style.

To summarize, we want to push the envelope even more, set new standards for the puppet industry and bring puppets back to the mainstream.

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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I recently had a chat with Zack Buchman, the creative force behind Furry Puppet Studio, and asked him some questions about his company and his puppet design process.  I really respect his work and his devotion to his art.  He’s also a fellow judge on this year’s Puppet Contest by Project Puppet.  Here is part two of the interview:

PH: Character design is the most important element of puppet building.  Take me through your design process.  What are your main considerations when it comes to designing and building a puppet?

ZB: The first and most important part of my creative process is, well, doodling.  I basically sit down and just draw whatever creatures come to mind.  Later, when I’ve gained some distance, I look back at the pages I filled and start searching for the characters that best express the look my client is asking for.

I review and discuss with the client, and together we try to analyze what it is about that sketch that we like so much.  We start the process from there; always trying to preserve the original essence of the doodle we both liked.

There are many considerations to the process of designing a puppet.  You have to make it all make sense in the 3-D space, which sometimes is not a simple task.  All the characters have to look good together as a cast, not individually.  Another challenging task in the design process is making the character look interesting and appealing from all angles.  Also, making a puppet with a strong, defined expression, yet will also allow the puppeteer to express a wide variety of feelings is not an easy feat.

PH: What materials do you prefer to work with and why?

ZB: I love working with materials I’ve never worked with before–experimenting with them, trying to find new ways to get the most out of them.  We are ordering, on a regular basis, new fabrics from many different suppliers, hoping to find new jewels.  New York is packed with the best supply stores in the country.  Every time a new material is making its way onto the market, we’re the first to try it out.

An interesting thing we’ve found over the years is that we like our fleece to be manufactured in a certain way.  We’ve found a factory overseas that was willing to work with us on creating our “dream fleece”.  Today most of the fleece we’re using is being produced and manufactured specifically for us.

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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I recently had a chat with Zack Buchman, the creative force behind Furry Puppet Studio, and asked him some questions about his company and his puppet design process.  I really respect his work and his devotion to his art.  He’s also a fellow judge on this year’s Puppet Contest by Project Puppet.  Here is part one of the interview:

PH:  First of all, tell me a bit about yourself and your team.  How did you get involved in puppetry and where did you learn to build puppets?

ZB:  My story is somewhat unique.  I started in the field of animation, which I really enjoyed for a few years, but slowly grew tired of it.  The animation work took over my life.  I spent all of my time doing technical stuff, drawing frame after frame, after frame.  I knew I couldn’t do it for much longer.

Puppet making was an obvious transition for me.  Just think about it–to make a puppet move you don’t have to draw thousands of frames, you just have to physically move it.  In other words, with puppet design you only create what’s really important, the essence of the character.  From an animator’s point of view, seeing your character moving in real time, touching it, interacting with it; it’s truly exhilarating.

My studio partner, Maria Gurevich, really deserves the credit for getting me into this world.  she was my first teacher; she taught me how to sculpt, to understand the materials.  It’s sort of unbelievable that today we are partners.  I owe her a lot.

PH:  Tell me a bit about Furry Puppet.  How did it get started, and how did you come up with the name?

ZB:   The studio started in a very natural way.  I came to NY and wanted to make puppets.  I designed our first website from inside the Starbucks at Times Square.  Somehow our company stood out from the others; even back then we were successful.  That initial success opened a lot of doors for us.

Regarding the name, Furry Puppet, I really don’t have a great answer.  Maybe it was the fact that I constantly drew little furry characters, on the subway, in the park–maybe it was my primitive English when I first started here!  I guess the bottom line is it worked.

PH:   Who is your biggest inspiration artistically and why?

ZB:  Like almost any puppet builder you’d ask, my biggest inspiration is Jim Henson’s Muppets.  Those guys established many standards and rules for puppet building that constitute the basis for this genre.  Any new puppet character you come up with is automatically compared to one of Henson’s characters–and I’m OK with that.

Besides that, I take inspiration from the wonderful mix of characters walking the streets of New York.  This city is so full of amazing characters:  so many different colors, shapes, and sizes.  In one subway ride, I can find enough material to fill an entire sketchbook (though I get a lot of dirty looks!)

Other artists I take inspiration from are those that were responsible for the golden age of computer adventure games during the early 90’s.  Pierre Gilhodes and Steve Purcell are two big ones for me.  There is something enchanting aobut their pixellated, 2-D work.

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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Here is another project that we worked on this year.  The puppet’s name is Leo, and he is the brainchild of Kevin Airgid of Airgid Media Inc.  in Canada.

He was a fun character to build.  The little “noodle” on top of his head actually wobbles around as he moves adding movement and “life” to the puppet.  Below are some more photos of Leo:

Tags: Projects, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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Here are a couple of puppets that I recently built for Jim Mayer.  Jim has been a member of Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band since 1989, but since 2002, he’s been playing children’s music as Uncle Jim.  Go on over and find out “Everything you ever needed to know about Uncle Jim on one single page”, or get even more info at his website, Uncle Jim Rocks!  I like Jim’s motto of “finding Joy and Wonder in everyday life”.

Martin and Sammy started as voice characters that Jim developed and even used on his most recent album,  Let There Be Fun.  I had the pleasure of helping him bring them to life as puppets.  Martin is the straight-laced intellectual, and Sammy is the carefree rocker.  Here are some more photos of Martin:

And here are more photos of Sammy:

And you can see their video debut with Uncle Jim here:

Tags: Projects, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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The Roanoke Times featured Thistledown Puppets in two articles today.  You can find the first article with a behind the scenes video here.  The second article is about the success of Bull: A Puppet Musical and can be found here. Thanks so much to Kevin Kittredge and Eric Brady at the Times.

Tags: Bull: International, Bull: Roanoke, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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