Puppet-in-Progress: From the foam up

[Slackbot]

The finished puppet has been posted in another thread. His name is Lawliet. Say hi if you haven't already.

So I'm still between commissions, and I figured I'd take it easy, chill out, not worry about puppets for a little while. And look what happened when I turned my back last night.

Is there no end to the madness?!

I've been considering making finger tubes for the mouthplates, and using Sculpt or Coat, which is recommended in The Foam Book. Is anyone here experienced with either or both of these, and if so can you offer some words of wisdom or point to a thread where this has already been discussed? My goal is to give finer control of the mouthplate so a puppet can make neat faces and enunciate, but without making the puppeteer uncomfortable or making the mouthplate bendy in the wrong direction.

 

[bigwilly2000]

I was wondering how you made the glasses with the eyes? Spoons glued onto black plastic and cut to shape?

 

[Slackbot]

Yep. I cut the bowls off two plastic spoons, then filed the edges to remove any trace of the neck and to make sure the bowl would lay flat. The plastic is part of a thick vinyl placement I bought years ago. It will be reinforced with black floral wire on the back.

 

[Slackbot]

I recently checked back at pingpongballs.net. The site has been revamped, cosmetically at least, and I see that they now accept Paypal. I wanted to order some of their 50MM balls earlier, but their BBB rating and comments made me unwilling to send them my credit card info. Anyway, I'll see what quality the balls are once I get them. If they're any good, I'll have a new source of medium-sized Fraggle eyes.

 

[The Count]

Yep, paypal is much better a transaction method. If you don't receive your item after seven weeks of waiting, then you can open a case followed by escalating it to a claim to try to get your money/credit payment back.

 

[Slackbot]

I got my order of 50mm balls from from pingbongballs.net in decent time, and they look good. You can see a seam if you look hard, but really it's hardly noticeable. I used them to re-eyeball Red, and they made all the difference:

They cost about $2 each in a pack of 24, which is pretty pricey for plastic spheres. But when I consider what I spend on ostrich feathers, it's not all that bad.

 

[Puppet crazy]

I have also seen another version where they glued a clear rubber tube in the position you put your "sock" in. Then bend the rod a little to hook it in.

I've tried almost every way imaginable to attach arm rods. This is the best so far. It has been the most secure and easy to make method yet.

 

[pizzaroger2003]

Hair! It is a thing!

The beginning: A ping-pong ball wired to the skull the same way the eyes were, a hot glue gun, and a few million bundles of fuchsia feather barbs. It took about a week to make all of those. Argh. Off-camera is a single white feather for the accents. I glued the feathers to go right behind the eyes before attaching the "hairball", because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get 'em all the way down there, and the white ball might have been visible behind the eyes.

Half done. When I glue the bundles to the ball I hold them for a few seconds while I blow on the glue. That way the hair stands out all lively-like rather than laying down. I pull off a few barbs from the white feather and glue them down at random.

"Boy, isn't it time you got a haircut?" It needs a bit of trimming. I'll do that later. I always get a little squeamish cutting ostrich feathers, but Gobo always looks to me as if he just had a very clumsy haircut.

Tongue is also trimmed. It fits a little more comfortably in his mouth now.

OMG this looks amazing! Do you sell these?

 

[Slackbot]

OMG this looks amazing! Do you sell these?

I make puppets on commission.

 

[gonzo 1981]

as it is called the material used to skin fraggle? 1mm is felt?