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.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Photo Gallery


Here is a gallery of many the puppets I have made.





Friday, July 25, 2008

Adam Ant

I finished Adam Ant today. I am very happy with the way he turned out. He might just be my favorite puppet so far. The mechanism works perfectly. The hard hat fits perfectly and he's just down right cute.

I've decided that Adam and his family are going to be latino. This gives me the opportunity to introduce additional cultural elements to the Johsua Junebug series. At the same time accents are very helpful in generating new voices.


I am planning to introduce a brother and sister to the cast as well.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Free Puppet Head Pattern

I've decided to post the basic pattern for the heads I have been building for the Joshua Junebug series of puppets. In reality this pattern is just the starting point. So far only Joshua has used this exact pattern. All the others have been modifications. I post this so that others who are just beginning building puppets will have something to help them understand how to shape foam.




Enjoy.

If you would like a higher resolution copy of this pattern I'd be happy to email one to you.

PS: I have posted a video tutorial for building this pattern on You Tube. Hope this helps too.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Adam Ant

I'm working on an ant puppet, for the Joshua Junebug and Friends project. At this point I'm planning to name him Adam. In many ways the process of the build is similar to the termite build the major difference, other than cosmetics, is the internal mechanism. I decided that I wanted the mechanism to be small enough for the puppeteers hand to fit inside the puppet and still work it. It took a bit of thinking but I was able to come up with a new design.



The bulk of the mechanism is made out of 1/2 inch pvc tubing. The spring is a section I cut from a old fashion screen door spring. this spring is secured by forcing it into the top of the pvc tubing. The bottom jaw is made out of a wood dowel whittled down so that it would fit snugly into the spring. The trigger is made from a 1 inch dowel. I drilled a 3/4 inch hole through the dowel and then carved the dowel down to prevent finger pinching and cut a grove to prevent pressure points on the fingers. 14 gauge wire secures the trigger to the bottom jaw.

The mechanism works great. I think I'll probably use this design for all my new rod puppets.