My First Marionette

[Chris Arveson]

Now the next challenge is to make a rod-arm puppet that matches him as closely as possible. That way Pierrot can be a marionette while he's in the theater, and can travel with the other puppets on their adventures.

One more marionette to build, a girl with blue hair . . .

[Na]

Very nice - what are the hands and feet made of?

[Chris Arveson]

Very nice - what are the hands and feet made of?

I must confess, I got a $1 doll from the local bargain store, removed the hands and feet and used them. I'm no sculptor, so I used someone else's work.

[Puppet-Planet]

Nothing wrong with that!  I buy used stuffed animals and salvage eyes, noses, costumes, etc. all the time! 

[Na]

Oh, that's a good idea. Must remember that!

[gav]

Yeah I do that sometimes. I get a bunch of  puppets and rip them apart.  It's a massacre...

[StiqPuppet Productions]

I remove eyes and noses as well from teddies and give the left overs back to the kids (is that cruel?)     

Nice job with the marionette very impressive paint job on the face.  Don't worry about being embarrassed about not making the hands and feet we all use parts of anything to make our puppets sometimes.....I love the challenge to find the right thing.

Daryl H

[Jorge]

You should have seen the first time my girlfriend saw me taking out the eyes to a cuddly toy.
I was in a hurry because I was preparing a set of puppets for a Christmass gift, so I took out the eyes while walking back home from the one dollar shop, in the street, with my teeth .

She still loves me, beautiful girl

[Chris Arveson]

Hooray! Hooray! On Friday I got my sewing machine back from the shop, and boy does it work well now! No more broken thread, even stitching, I can actually get some work done.

Here is part two of my marionette project. The Pierrot character appears at the beginning of the show in a marionette theater. So, I made a marionette. (I still have another to complete. Now that I have the sewing machine, it shouldn't take too long.) Later in the show he is traveling on a journey, and strings would definitely be a problem. So I made a larger version of him as a rod-arm puppet.

So here are the two of them together, ready to go.

[StiqPuppet Productions]

They do look the same......great job .

Did you sew the face details on the larger puppet?

If you did that is very impressive work.

Daryl H

[Chris Arveson]

Did you sew the face details on the larger puppet?

The face details are made of very carefully cut out felt. I backstitched them on, and then, because they were tearing somewhat as I stitched, I whipstitched them as well, to make sure that they wouldn't fall apart with use.

The thing about this project that has really interested me is that usually I am trying to make a puppet that looks like something other than a puppet (a human, an animal, a totem pole, whatever. This time, I was trying to make a puppet that looked like a puppet.

[Monkey]

Great puppets-
As a member of the spcsa I would suggest the rest of you get help (Kidding, kidding-maybe)