Last Friday, my little man Titus came into the world. I can’t wait until he can build puppets with Daddy.

Tags: General Stuff, Puppet People, Thistledown Stuff by Philip
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Here is the third puppet that I built for The Kids Music Underground. She’s an Anime style catgirl named Yuki. What I like about this character is the funky, colorful design and the varying textures in her outfit.

Her tail is flexible and attached to her back with monofilament. This allows the tail to wag and wiggle when she moves.

Tags: Projects, Puppet People by Philip
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Here’s the second puppet that I made for The Kid’s Music Underground. The idea was a cubist painting come to life. The intial idea was to have him be flat (like a foam finger), but that presented challenges with movement. I’m really pleased with the three dimensional outcome.

One of the cool features of this puppet is the movable eyes. They are what give this puppet it’s expression.

Tags: Projects, Puppet People by Philip
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This past summer I was approached by the guys from The Kids Music Underground in New York City to build some puppets for their new show. The group makes really fun music for kids and travels around the city teaching and putting on live shows.

What intrigued me was the really eclectic mix of characters they had in mind, including a koala with dredlocks, a Cubist (think: the painting style) bull, and an anime style catgirl. Usually the challenging projects end up becoming the fun and rewarding projects, and that was definitely the case here. How was it challenging, you ask? Well…how, for instance, do you turn a Picasso-like painting of a bull into a believable three-dimensional object? I think we figured it out.

I want to spend the next couple of posts giving you a closer look at the puppets, including some pics from production. Up first will be the Koala. He’s the laid back, easy going one of the bunch:

I absolutely love this guy’s color and texture.

Tags: Projects, 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 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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While on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to stop in and see The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry up in Connecticut. When we first pulled up, the first thing that struck me is how unassuming the place is. Once inside, however, I saw some really cool stuff. The current exhibit is called Puppets Through the Lens:  The Puppet in Film, Television, and the Internet. The exhibit is packed with an array of instantly recognizable characters and as a builder it was so exciting to be that close to some of the puppets that I have only seen on the screen. 

I was most excited when I turned a corner and saw Scooter looking at me! I’ve never seen any of the Muppets up close and was struck by how small he is. The next thing that hit me was how wonderful the fleece looked (I’m so disappointed at how the quality of Antron has diminished!)

There were so many beautiful puppets from over the years, including the gopher from Caddyshack, a dinosaur from Jurassic Park II, Bill Baird marionettes, Flexitoon puppets, and tons more.  Here are a few more photos:

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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Many congratulations to Pasha Romanowski. He has just re-launched a new and improved Project Puppet. The site essentially looks the same, but it is apparently much more user friendly. The Gallery has changed a bit, and the site now has a Puppet Building Tutorial page which I’m sure will be looked at billions of times from eager puppet builders. So what are you waiting for? Go check it out and buy some patterns and supplies today!

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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The Touched By A Child Foundation is a non-profit counseling agency that was started by the McVicker family in Nevada City, CA. They actually use puppets and plays to address the particular issues that arise in foster families.

I was recently contacted by the mother, Kathy McVicker. She told me that they started the business after they had birthed 7 chilren and then adopted 11 children (Wow!) and discovered how lost and abandoned children are in the foster system. She said that “many grow up in foster care and when they are 18 they turn out to live a life they aren’t prepared for. As a result, there are children really hurting and struggling, not knowing where they belong. And the flip side to all of this…many families who take these children in have a very hard time dealing with the many, many issues that these kids are dealing with…even when they are adopted.”

So her husband went back to school, after being an Electrical contractor for 25 years, to get his license as a Marriage and Family therapist.  Kathy has been homeschooling the kids for over 25 years and started using drama to give the kids a chance to express themselves.  They started performing for friends and family, but now they’ve gotten a bit more serious and now put on dinner theater productions at a historic hotel under the name Touched By A Child Dine and Shine Theater.  They encourage families to bring their kids our for dinner and watch a puppet show with music and a good moral lesson. 

Kathy and her husband have suddenly become heroes of mine.  I have a heart for children, especially children that have to face adversity so early in life.  I applaud their efforts and hope that they continue in their amazing, and often difficult work.  I know that they will make a tremendously positive impact in the lives of a lot of young people.  And who knows what some of those kids will go on to do?

To read a little more about a couple of their performances, you can look here or here.

Tags: Puppet People by Philip
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