ok, I'm gonna be brave and post some of my work, lol..though all of yours leave mine in the dust...

Anyway, this is a mouse rod puppet I'm building for a Christmas show and I'd appreciate any feedback.  He's made of carved slab foam for the body/legs and 1/2 inch poly for the head.  I've inserted a spring for his mouth, and a string will run down inside of a tube in his body to a trigger on the main rod.  His legs will be attached with doll joints and his arms will probably be some kind of rope joints so they can open outward (maybe I'll just stitch them on).  He'll be covered in grey fleece.  The pipe cleaner tail ain't gonna stay--I just wanted to see how a tail would look there...

How are his proportions?  His head is looking a touch large and maybe his nose is a bit too long?  thanks!

I reckon he looks fantastic or should I say fantasia!

I think the proportions are spot on as most toon mice have huge heads.

That is if you want him to resemble a toon like mouse.

I think there much more attractive then the really mice out there..Eek!

thanks!  and I'm definitely going for the cartoon look   he'll hopefully look better once I get the pins out and get him covered, lol

He's looking really good.

Very nice... can't wait to see him finished.  I agree your proportions are right on track.

Looks great- it wasn't until I clicked on the image to look closer that I even realised that it was a bare foam prototype

Great Job!

Billy D.

i think it looks awsome great job

In my opinion, it looks awesome,
I'm just a little jealous that i didn't make it, at first when i saw the heading 'mouse rod puppet' i thought 'oh, here we go, another person trying to make rizzo the rat', but when i saw him, i was thoroughly impressed, he is entirely your own creation!! i think that the proportions are great and the nose isn't too long or anything, the appearance is (presumptuously) supposed to be slightly over exaggerated, so id say go for it and finish this guy just the way he is!! I'm even thinking of having a play around with making another rod puppet myself (since its been a while) and if i do, then i hope he looks as good as yours!!
Ben.

While we are on the subject of rod puppets, I was wondering if folks would like to share their methods for the control of the head.  It has been many years since I made a rod puppet but when I was we used a mechanism that allowed you to move manipulate the head with your fingers at the base of the rod.

I really wish I would have saved some images of this mechanism.  A quick basics of it would be that it was a dowle rod with a round wooden ball glued to the top. A cord ran up through this ball up into a plug that was the diameter of the neck.  This created a ball joint of sorts that gave you full radial movement. A metal rod was hinged to the bottom of this plug and ran down to another plug (and hinged there) that had a hole in the center of it that allowed it to be threaded on to the dowel rod.  This let you trigger the upper part by moving this plug up, down and side to side. You then connected your head to the upper plug. Maybe when I get back home I can try to draw this up and perhaps swing by my old puppet company and get some images of the mechanism. I am pretty sure they still use the same method.