From my bio...
Retiree with an entirely too many hobbies and interests. I am in the process of learning by error! My first completed project was a marionette conversion fabricated from a retailed monkey puppet/'companion' designed like a backpack. (found at a thrift store) It was too heavy. (lesson learned) A better use for that item would have been a conversion to rod puppet.
Next a small teapot conversion. Controller cross-members are too short as well as the rope legs. (lesson learned... will re-do) Current project is a dancer. Her head salvaged from a hair styling toy, body is of wood with some carving. (My treatment of the carved hands may be of special interest to this group.) Holding off on the controller until I digest more of Coads' 'Marionette Sourcebook'. I enjoy making the puppets.

If you managed to wade your way through that... What a fascinating, talented, group of people found here!

Of the little I know I found on the internet and recent additions to the personal library...
The complete Book of Marionettes (Mabel & Les Beaton)
An introduction to Puppets and Puppet Making (David Currell)
The Complete Book of Puppetry (Currell)
Marionette Magic (Bruce Taylor)
Marionette Sourcebook (Luman Coad)

I have also studied a great many books from the library... (I found Fettig!) I am blown away with the inventive minds in this field and hope to add to the knowledge base as I progress. Note that to date I am using factory produced heads, ( a re-cycle of sorts ) however, I will start the sculpting/casting of heads as soon as I have worked my way through the many ways to do the engineering/mechanics. (I am a retired Millwright so the mechanics hold a special appeal for me.)

I have slowly waded my way through some of the 'Listing of spoon-archives/puptcrit.archiv' and am pleased to find the same talented and able contributers involved on this site.

To advance my studies I am in the process of scheduling a trip to the Mac Nider Art Museum (Mason City, Iowa) which houses the Bill Baird collection. Also, on that trip I will visit the Puppetry Arts Institute in Independance, Missouri which houses the Hazelle collection. I promise a great many pictures to share with you all!

 In closing, thank you for allowing me to advance my knowledge and participate/associate with your fine group!

Welcome! Although I don't make marionnetes and never really plan to, i am fascinated with that style of puppetry. I'd love to see some pictures of your expiriments with marrionetes. If you want to learn more about puppetry then you've definately come to the right place!

Thank you SunBeatle Puppets. I do not know how to send pictures to the site. (please advise) As an alternative I could e-mail them to you. Regards, Rocky

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff......................... Great choice of books. I don't make marionettes either but would love to learn if I had more time. Shawn the forums owner and Administrator has a deep history in marionette building as well as quite a few others on the forum. I admire your drive to learn everything there is to know about the building process.That will make you a better builder as you learn and create your own style of building. If you want to add a picture to a post you can create a album in the gallery located in the menu up top. Once you do that you click on the gallery image button at the bottom of each post....which opens a new window....follow the prompts in the drop down menu until you find your album name and then find the picture you want to insert and click on that image and it will automatically insert it in to your post.
The other way is to use the icons above the post one which features images this will insert a code into the post of which you can insert a re-sized image URL from a website like photo bucket . Hope I explained it right.

Billy D.

Welcome. I've made a few marionettes and think they are great.

Welcome! I too am a fan of experimental recycling (I recycled a toy into a marionette amongst other things), and you'll find an absolute wealth of info here and at Puptcrit. Please don't hesitate to ask questions and post pics!

Welcome to PandS!  I had to look up the word Millwright.   I kind of had in idea what it would mean but was not sure.

Looks like Billy already took care of explaining how you can upload images to the Gallery and then use the Gallery Image button to insert them into post but if you are unclear on the process just let me know. I am curious also about your experiments. I learn so much from doing it "wrong".   Had to put the word wrong in quotes because I really feel that in this field or really any there is no wrong way of doing things just different ways.

Welcome! We used to live in Appleton, Wisconsin! And now we live just a couple hours away from Mason City where the Bill Baird collection is. I need to make it there myself! Marionettes fascinate me so I cannot wait to see what you have made! Again - WELCOME!!

I have posted a few pics to the gallery 'rocky'...









I am out of space to send more...  Regards, rocky

wow those are really cool!