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Copyright is a very murky legal area, there are no hard and fast rules and unfortunately it usually takes a court case to determine if something is actually copyright infringement or not. There's a number of factors that are used to determine if something is infringing or not. I am not lawyer...

Unraku did a fun gig last week; we were asked to have a puppet character host a Christmas call in show for kids in Southern Ontario called "Talk With Santa". The format of the show is that kids call in and, well, talk with Santa. We did 5 live one hour shows last week, which I really enjoyed...

Well, I am constantly experimenting with new approaches to mouth grips. I've often done smaller ridges too. This was an experiment to develop something more comfortable; we built a large moose (our shop is always doing moose, bears and beavers, it must be a Canadian thing) that had a similar...

That's a very cool trick, I have never thought to try something like that.

At work we use 3-in-1 glue, which is an adhesive manufactured by Beacon Adhesives. It works really well on open cell foam (the squishy, sponge-like kind). It is mildly toxic and you should use a respirator and work in a ventilated area, although it doesn't have anywhere near the toxicity of...

Here's the mouth plate installed inside the final puppet (well part of it) - http://twitpic.com/3dud60

Sorry Sarah, do you mean that you don't know how to pattern the lower part of the jaw? If you can pose specific questions with more details I'm sure everyone here will be happy to help you.

What part specifically is stumping you?

It's very comfortable once covered in shammy, although I think the shape needs some refining so that it has a slightly more ergonomic design. I may sculpt a new model later this week if I have time.

Finally got around to trying something new for puppet mouth plates today, a vacuformed plastic hand grip. In the past I've tried a dozen or so different ways of making these, but I really like this. It's a prototype and a little rough; the final step is to cover the plastic with shammy...

Snaps are cool, although in my experience you want good ones and don't want to use the really cheap ones. They will sometimes come apart at the worst possible moment!

Sarah, if you send me a private message I can email it to you.

Really? What makes you say that? I've found exactly the opposite; Scott Foam (which is just a brand name for reticulated open cell foam) seems to break down much faster than regular poly (upholstery) foam. I have puppets that I made back in high school 15 years ago with poly foam that are more...

Yes, this is very true. Once and awhile when someone asks me about puppet making advice (not that I am the best puppet builder) I usually say something like "go take these patterns, build a few dozen and then come back and talk to me" because you really have to make a lot of mistakes before you...

Congrats on the big day being such a success!

Yes, the flipper prints are still there. A saw a recent photo of them on Facebook not too long ago. In addition to the ideas that David mentioned, the Museum of Television and Radio has a lot of rare Muppet videos that are available to view.

If you're strapped for time I would definitely try an Acrylic sealer first to avoid repainting, but coating the tree is your best bet for the long term, as others have mentioned (in your previous posts I didn't realize that you weren't coating the foam or sealing the paint). Another option for...

Traveling with puppets that have mechs should not be a problem; it's likely after they are X-rayed they will want to take them out for a secondary inspection, so you should allow lots of time to go through security. Other than that it should be fine. Oh and Pelican cases - although sometimes...

We have these videos at work, and I watched them awhile back with a group of puppet builders. They are very good, although our criticism of them was that Dave tends to gloss over things like this sometimes and doesn't always offer an in-depth explanation of every technique he's using.

If your goal is to hide seams, you want a material that has a pile ("fuzziness"). The higher the pile, the easier it is to hide seams. That's why Antron fleece is so popular, because it has a nice pile to it. There are a lot of different kinds of felt. Most people find craft felt (the kind...