Count Von Count replica

[Derek Thompson]

It has been way too long since I have been in the wondeful company of one of my favorite forums. I have finally found some momentum of a new puppet build. I am excited to put to practice all the cool tips and tricks I learned from the past BJ guyer workshops. I cant say enough about how good a teacher he is. So I have everything for several puppets but I gravitated for now to the Count. Very Few have done him and He is one I have really loved since I was a kid. I am starting with the monstro puppet that I bought from project puppets. The skull and mouth plate is really just my launching point. I resized the mouth plate and found that 105% blowup on the skull works nicely. I used the monocle as point of reference for size. Ten I blew up the reference pics. All I needed to do was establish the diameter of the mouth plate and All the dimensions fall into place. I am attempting to do this as professional as possible. All my materials are what the muppeteers would use. I have the antron fleece. I also have Polar fleece which is the perfect color. I am still on the fence. I have reticulated foam for the skull and bottom jaw, Birch ply for the mouth plate, Gaffers tape and Barge to hinge it together. It is my first Skinned puppet. Elmo Has fur. I will embrace the hand stitching to hide the seems. It is also my first live hand puppet so I look forward to what I can learn from that aspect of the build. I will continue to post pics as I make more progress.

 

[Derek Thompson]

yet again the pics didn't take. I will post them to my website then I can link them here. I think that is how i did it before.

 

[Derek Thompson]

AHAH!!!! Victory. Her is my beginnings. I will post more as I make progress. Mouth plate here I come. Now where are those scroll saw blades?

 

[crazy chris]

Lookin great so far!!! Excited to see more!

 

[Derek Thompson]

Thank you so much. feels good to be back and building. I cut out the mouth plate tonight and barged on the ultra suede. I have been watching a lot of videos of the count and I am glad I did because I noticed his overbite. I worked that in to his mouth plate. I secured the back of the plates the way BJ showed us with a bit of barge and some Gaff tape. I still need to do the finger cups. Maybe I will cut those out tonight. BTW I am really excited about the new season of Muppets.

 

[FoxWorthy]

I'm wery wery excited to see this build!

 

[Derek Thompson]

Got the mouth plate done and I have to tell you that BJ Guyer's suede Finger loops on the mouth plate are SO comfortable and feel very free. Pics to follow. Next I am revamping the skull design to include the super soft foam in the corners of the mouth and custom fitting the foam for the bottom jaw. Then I can start covering the head with the fleece.

 

[Derek Thompson]

Here you can see the glued up underskull with mouth plate and bottom jaw attached. I was pretty happy with the bottom jaw because it was a custom alteration of BJ guyers pattern for the skull. I used my skull and insert the super soft packman in the corner of the mouths. Another BJ suggestion I really like. Then I blew up his skull pattern and cut it out to fit with my skull cap. It definitely took some adjustments on the fly but i am really happy with the over all shape. The eye brows and the features are just on to assess the success of this stage. Do I still like it? Do I continue? Yes!!!

Here i was just getting excited at how he will look so I whipped up some eyes and just placed them on to see how he looks. Before anyone says anything, I know the eyes are not remotely right. I did them at midnight just to see what I thought of the eye size. The eye brows are not quite right either. just some spare felt I had to see if the features would even fit on his face. They will indeed.

Here is a shot inside his head. I forgot to take progress pics of the finger cups but if you watch BJ’s seminar on rod puppets that is exactly how I did them and they feel amazing. he second picture shows the mouth plate fully locked into the foam skull. Again the nose is just pinned on. I may want to adjust the nose slightly. the tongue is also ultra suede and just placed for now.

 

[Derek Thompson]

Stay tuned for the neck sleeve and the three fingered hands. I have a breathable workout pant material for the sleeve. Its like a lycra or spandex but way more breathable and moisture wicking. I'll sew that up and put a boning ring on the end then the head is ready for a fleecing. I will experiment over the next few days to see if the polar fleece can hide the seems to my satisfaction. two small swatches and a bit of Henson stitch will let me know if i have a winner.

 

[crazy chris]

Loving this build so far Derek!! Great Stuff!!

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