Scoob, I'm forever doing things backwards so I can relate! It would be really interesting to compare your techniques with others. I was a self taught at doll making and discovered so much when I actually purchased a pattern. Mind you, there's something kinda cool about knowing you've achieved something yourself without support or someone else's influence. For a self taught puppet builder, I think your characters are amazing.

Shawn, I have seen some of those epic posts! I didn't want it to seem like I was forever talking about myself but I've enjoyed continuing this thread as everyone's responses leads me somewhere else on this site or teaches me something. This really is a fabulous site!  

Na, I'm in Coffs Harbour in NSW. I do fly to Melbourne a couple of times a year though so I will definitely look you up next time. Thanks so much for the link to supplies in Australia. I just read your section on foam - really awesome and so clear. Clark Rubber here gave me a mega bag of offcuts for free on the condition I send them a photo of my puppet (really nice guys and very surprised to hear I wanted to buy foam for a puppet!). As such, I've been working with blocks of bulky, oddly sized foam and trying to cut them down. I love the idea of 'foamie' so will check that out this weekend. Must say your site is quite the goldmine too! Might take me while to wade through all the information but looking forward to it.

Thanks again

Lizzie

Na - Don't know about Australia, but in the U.S. there are always plenty of stuffed animals for sale at thrift shops and garage sales.  Lots of stuffing in those that can be recycled. I've done a lot of recycling when doing crafts with children.  I have even recycled eyes from stuffed animals when I could not find the eyes I wanted for a particular puppet.

I agree with the comments about antron and reticulated foam.  Using the best materials is nice, and if I were doing something particular for myself, or for a client who requested those items, I would use them.  However... most of my customers are churches/schools/daycares, with small budgets. I try to keep my prices as low as possible.  I take several buying trips per year and buy many items in large quantity, which helps. When the audience is looking at a puppet in the puppet stage, they cannot tell if the item is antron or a cheaper fleece.

I check the remnant bins at fabric stores often, and always watch for sales and coupons. We travel a lot, and I have found that small fabric and craft shops (not the typical chain stores) have some things I cannot find elsewhere.  
I happened to be at my moms in CA when a craft store was going out of business. The day I went in everything was 90-95% off!  I purchased all the velcro they had, along with a lot of yarn, eyes, fur, doll joints, etc. Spent less than $100 for about $1,000 worth of stuff.

RE - rod arms. I have seen some that are acrylic, which tend to be more sturdy than the wire ones. Dowel rods work too. One time we needed extra rods and were out of town. We found some heavy duty metal barbecue skewers at the dollar store.  They worked great.

Thank for the encouragement Na, as you say I should post everything, anything can be an inspiration. I'm not worried about any judgement here (that's the beauty of the site) It's more a matter of time I'm afraid. I'l try and get to the camera work later in the week. I've had another project underway taking my time, a dinosaur mural at my daughters kindergarten. I'll try and post some photo's of that soon, while it's not a puppetry thing it is "and stuff."
Like Shawn's recent posting of the foam armor, lot's of things lead to different techniques
Here I was apologising for the term and getting it quoted back at me, by the Aussies anyway! It really is liberating to splash around the hot glue and whack things together with a lot less stress about the budget every now and again, and definitely part of the creative process!
Ms Puppet, hmm Barbeque Skewers....
Lizzie keep those guys at Clark Rubber on side, knock them up a puppet to put in the shop. It's a good source of foam but they USUALLY charge through the nose, even for scrap. You've got them charmed keep it up!
Off to look at Na's australian resource list now (and do the paper work I'm meant to be doing...)
Scoob

Hey Scoob, Looking forward to the photos when you get a chance and would love to see the "and stuff" mural too! The bags of foam Clark Rubber have "free to good homes" are enormous. For the first bag they tried to give I would have needed a truck to transport it home! It's all good upholstery (I think) foam that usually retails at $80 per mtr. Perhaps if people here could use/need some I could send out my freebies. There is no way in hell I could use it all and it might save some dosh... just a thought anyway.

Lizzie

Shawn, I have seen some of those epic posts! I didn't want it to seem like I was forever talking about myself but I've enjoyed continuing this thread as everyone's responses leads me somewhere else on this site or teaches me something. This really is a fabulous site!   

Don't worry, if anybody does epic writing, it's me. This is why I have so much stuff on my websites. (And hey, I need two!) I just can't stop writing crap

Seriously though, it's great to have long conversations here. The community is very disperse and it's good to have lots of people from around the world to join in.

PS. If you want verbose, sign up for Puptcrit.org. It's an email discussion list for puppeteers, and I stopped reading a year ago because I couldn't keep up with the flurry of conversation. By comparison, this site is a stroll through the park.

Na, I'm in Coffs Harbour in NSW. I do fly to Melbourne a couple of times a year though so I will definitely look you up next time.

Nice - pity there's not much (that I can think of) near you puppetry-wise. Most of the companies in NSW are local to Sydney.

I'd offer to visit you, but sadly there's no money in my accounts at the moment.
And I'd love a holiday too! But yes, if you're here, let me know.

Thanks so much for the link to supplies in Australia. I just read your section on foam - really awesome and so clear.

No probs. The main reason I post all those things on my site is because I didn't know where to start in terms of finding out about puppetry in Australia. The community is surprisingly not publicised well, especially online. Making lists of local companies and other things was just a handy way for me to keep track of what I discovered over the years. As for the foam, thanks should go to Andrew, one of the members here; he posted the explanation of the foam.

Clark Rubber here gave me a mega bag of offcuts for free on the condition I send them a photo of my puppet (really nice guys and very surpr ised to hear I wanted to buy foam for a puppet!). As such, I've been working with blocks of bulky, oddly sized foam and trying to cut them down. I love the idea of 'foamie' so will check that out this weekend.

That's interesting - last time I went to my local Clark Rubber they couldn't have been less intrigued when I mentioned puppets. I've still got most of my block of foam though, haven't really had the need to use it yet. Foamies are good though, I like the fact you can get two different thicknesses. One is about 3mm and the other is about 5mm. The 3mm one is extremely flexible and works great for making puppet mouths that flex (ie. hold them the right way and you can make the mouth smile or frown).

Must say your site is quite the goldmine too! Might take me while to wade through all the information but looking forward to it.

Thanks. I have no doubt it will take you a while - School of Puppetry is about 1/4 migrated from my Puppets in Melbourne site. I originally had the stuff on PIM but last year decided it needed its own place; the original website is now just going to focus on my shadow puppets, which is my particular area of interest.

Suffice to say I will be migrating content for a long time to come still, and there's also a HUGE list of things to be added that haven't at all been written about. I often use the search function myself because there's just so much stuff there it's the quickest route to what I'm looking for.

I'm really glad other people find it useful, because often I don't get feedback and it's hard to know if I'm just talking to myself

Na - Don't know about Australia, but in the U.S. there are always plenty of stuffed animals for sale at thrift shops and garage sales.  Lots of stuffing in those that can be recycled. I've done a lot of recycling when doing crafts with children.  I have even recycled eyes from stuffed animals when I could not find the eyes I wanted for a particular puppet.

I had written about op shops - but I had totally forgotten about garage sales! Thanks, I'll add that in. Recycling eyes from toys is a great idea, and one that is slightly creepy

I agree with the comments about antron and reticulated foam.  Using the best materials is nice, and if I were doing something particular for myself, or for a client who requested those items, I would use them.  However... most of my customers are churches/schools/daycares, with small budgets. I try to keep my prices as low as possible.  I take several buying trips per year and buy many items in large quantity, which helps. When the audience is looking at a puppet in the puppet stage, they cannot tell if the item is antron or a cheaper fleece.

I think that's tough to judge. In my experience with people interested in commissions here, they want the best materials and aesthetics, but aren't willing to pay for it. Unfortunately also, finding suppliers of materials is difficult, there's not as much choice as Americans. In this case, the expensive items may also be the only items easily available.

I check the remnant bins at fabric stores often, and always watch for sales and coupons. We travel a lot, and I have found that small fabric and craft shops (not the typical chain stores) have some things I cannot find elsewhere.   
I happened to be at my moms in CA when a craft store was going out of business. The day I went in everything was 90-95% off!  I purchased all the velcro they had, along with a lot of yarn, eyes, fur, doll joints, etc. Spent less than $100 for about $1,000 worth of stuff.

I do too. So much so that I have forced myself to stop, because there's only so many pieces of black cotton fabric that one can buy thinking you'll use it later. And I subscribe to my local fabric store's newsletter so I know when sales are on (they also make for handy guides when it comes to pricing/sampling for commissions or prototypes), along with having a store card for discounts. I think I save 50% or so with the card and on my birthday I also get an extra discount. My sewing machine cost about 1/2 as normal because I bought during a sale and used my discount too. (Discounts apply no matter what you're buying, on sale or not)

RE - rod arms. I have seen some that are acrylic, which tend to be more sturdy than the wire ones. Dowel rods work too. One time we needed extra rods and were out of town. We found some heavy duty metal barbecue skewers at the dollar store.  They worked great.

Acrylic I've never seen. Where do you find them?

I've been thinking about using dowel rods without any wire inserted into them, but for some reason prefer the aesthetic of dowel/wire. I have no idea why, maybe it's just ingrained from various books and classes.

I'd never thought about metal skewers though; bamboo yes. Do you use them by themselves or with dowel?

Thank for the encouragement Na, as you say I should post everything, anything can be an inspiration. I'm not worried about any judgement here (that's the beauty of the site) It's more a matter of time I'm afraid.

Oh, I totally understand. Time. Why is there never enough of it?

But when/if you do have some time, please post pics!
Dinosaur mural, that sounds awesome

It really is liberating to splash around the hot glue and whack things together with a lot less stress about the budget every now and again, and definitely part of the creative process!

I agree. One of the things I liked, and I don't know if anyone is still doing, but Stiqpuppets on this site ran an online build-a-thon. Grab some materials and get onto BlogTV, and improvise making a puppet in 1/2 hour. It was lots of fun, and a great example of how puppetry is all about innovation and play.

Hey Na,
Get a lincraft card as well as the spot light. Yes they're a little more expensive (not really that much) but a different and sometimes bigger range. Also They have member only specials and the newsletter tells you when they have 50% off fabric days. Even if it's only once a year, I bought enough for easily a year or more at the last one, then bought more fleece a month after that when they had a fleece sale.
 I know you make a lot of shadow puppets and stuff but if you are using much foam you might find that clark rubber just too expensive. Before I left melbourne, the pauppet master for Avenue Q put me onto Foam Suppliers in Dandenong.I saw the foam he got for $50, plenty more than you'd get at Clark Rubber. They deliver but I think the price is a little negotiable, it's probably worth the drive (I dropped in when I was out there at a wetsuit manufacturer, but I know that's a fair drive to "drop in" otherwise.
 The guy at Foam suppliers put me onto Joyce foam In Brisbane for when I moved here. Their info online was way out of date but I tracked them down to an industrial area that is only a short drive from me. I got a similar amount of foam for my $55 dollars, I recon I can make about 7 puppets from it. A lot cheaper than previous trips to C Rubber as well. (and no, I've never got much interest or discount from them either.) I used to work there When I was 15, SOME TIME AGO!) and most scrap used to be charged at a similar rate to the original (fair enough) but then they'd round it up when estimating volume so scraps worked out more expensive than virgin foam! It may be that in some where as "remote" as Coffs Harbour it is cheaper to give it away than pay the freight back to the factory.
The other beauty  of Foam suppliers and Joyce foam (beside price, as if that wasn't enough) is they have a better range of reticulated foam for air filters as opposed to just poly foam ( plus heaps of poly foam in a better range of densities).
So add that to your Aussie Puppet supplies blog too.
Now that I've read all your replies and written my own I don't have time to sew or photo graph etc (how do you find the time to respond to every word of everyone's post!) :p I Have to go and catch up on chores I've neglected. I shall have to shun you all again for a while in order to make some puppets instead of reading about making them.
Till then, happiness is a warm puppet
Scoob

www.foamsuppliers.com.au
13 Hazel Avenue
Dandenong VIC 3175
(03) 9792 1884

I'm really glad other people find it useful, because often I don't get feedback and it's hard to know if I'm just talking to myself

It's a brilliant site Na! I haven't had a chance to delve much deeper yet but will keep the feedback coming! Like Scoob said, you blow my mind with your willingness to share your time and knowledge. Thanks!

I hunted around for foamie yesterday with no luck. Spotlight here have stopped stocking it so I found something that looks similar at Clark Rubber. It was $20 for a 2mtr sheet so I was stoked to find it. Hopefully it works as well.

I finished my second puppet today. I'm not entirely happy with the outcome but learned a lot more which is always a good thing. I'd love to make a human style puppet but learned from this one that moulding foam and fitting the fabric correctly is way more complex than I thought . If anyone has some tips, I'd love to hear them.

Lizzie, there are a few good tips on cutting and sewing your own darts in these tuorials...
http://swazzle.com/blogs/2006/03/puppet-building-tutorial-ratchet.html

By the way I love it, perfect feathers and a recognisable subject straight away! I wonder if our non -Australian Friends can pick what it is...