Our Mission

Welcome to my blog where I chronicle my efforts in designing and building puppets and their worlds. My hope is that I will contribute to the art of puppetry as I use it to lift up the name of Jesus.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Taylor Termite - Fabrication

Over the last several days I've been able to get quite a bit done in fabricating Taylor Termite. The technique I use for fabricating a puppet is called "draping". In doing this you place a piece of fabric over the puppet and pull and pin the fabric to the puppet. Gathering any excess fabric together and trimming it so that when it is sewn it will lie smoothly over the foam structure of the puppet. The idea is to get the fabric to lie flat and at the same time have as few seams as possible. When learning this technique I recommend that you use it to make a pattern which you will use to cut out your skin fabric. This will minimize the chance of making costly mistakes.

Well, after researching the coloration of termites, I chose to cover Taylor with two colors of pink fabric. The darker color for the head and the lighter color for the body. When I first started covering with the fabric with the colors I started to have second thoughts about them. I wasn't sure I liked the way they were coming together. But I kept on and as the eyes, antenna, and the inside of the mouth were added I decided that I liked the way they worked together. This reinforces something I read some where. If you've planned ahead, don't panic and make adjustments mid-project. Trust your plans to produce a good looking puppet. Some elements might not seem to fit until after other features are added.
Below are pictures of the progress so far. ENJOY!

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