Hello Shawn, To introduce myself... (I should do that over in the introduce yourself section, but you asked the question here in this thread.) I was born in  Invercargill, New zealand, southern most city in NZ but grew up in Nelson, at the north end of the South Island of NZ. I now live in Colombia, South America, am Married, have 5 children, and work under the wide job description of Christian  missionary, but in particular am doing TV and stuff with puppets. My story is  classic...while  'Lord of The Rings' was in full production, with 1 in 7 NZers working on the films in NZ , social services told me there was no future in TV and film for me, and sent me building houses. I quit with them and continued persuing puppetry and TV anyhow, and although we have transmitted hundreds of hours of TV over the last 20 years, we have never ever been paid for  anything transmitted. That background has produced the  handtools and recycled materials philosophy I live by. I don't maintain a website, but for the last three years or so have started using youtube. The Puppet tutorial I did was done so I would not have to do so many seminars (the last one of which I did in Cuba by invitation from the Cuban Govt, and the church there). You are welcome to contact me and ask anything you like. Blessings to you all.

Which video is this?

That would be the ones I listed on page 3 of this thread.  You can check out all of Philip's video's at http://www.youtube.com/user/PhilipStephens007/videos  He has quite a collection.

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff Philip!  Really pleased you followed the trail of bread crumbs here.   I am always impressed by an individual who can make do with the materials at hand.  I think often we get too caught up on having the right "stuff" and thus never get anything accomplished.

That would be the ones I listed on page 3 of this thread.   You can check out all of Philip's video's at http://www.youtube.com/user/PhilipStephens007/videos  He has quite a collection.

Ooooh, THOSE videos.   I should have just scrolled back a bit.  I got a little impatient I guess.


Philip glad you stopped by!!!

Thanks for the welcomes.

Welcome from me, too!

Phillip I think you are a prime example of the creative ingenuity that it takes to make puppets and the jigs that help make them better and faster, you inspire me, thanks for sharing. I spent summer of '72 in Medellin Colombia giving vaccines beautiful place. I was wondering why your puppets spoke spanish but you sounded like an Auzie.

Welcome Philip! I too am so glad you've followed the cyber trail here to P&S! Our community is so much the richer for having you in it. You're a fine craftsman and a pretty darn good teacher as well! I'm so very pleased to make your acquaintance through the power of the interweb.

Thank you Puppetainer for your welcome. Nice compliments. I have been looking around the site and am awestruck by the amazing talent that many of you guys have. What I do does not seem that flash in comparison. My puppets are developing in style, but I still lack much of the design finess that some of you have lots of. It is nice to be in contact with serious puppeters. I am subscribed to muppet central, but they are generally not builders and performers, so puppetsandstuff seems to me to be way more useful. It is really hard to find  serious puppeteers down here, so it is good to meet you all, and I hope we can get more aquainted as time goes on.

You're very welcome Philip! I too am a long time member of Muppet Central Forum, but what I was looking for there I found here instead. I still check in there and post very occasionally but this is where I spend most of my internet puppet time. You've found a great community of like-minded creative folks here!