New here, but very glad to be here. Planning on learning a lot from all of you more experienced in puppet building. I'm hoping to get it together to produce a simple offbeat kids' show for the internet, hopefully to start shooting within a year or so. I'm envisioning it as largely a puppet show, so I thought I might try to build a few characters to get me started.


If I've done this right, this should be a picture of the wild boar/feral pig couple. Two of the more realistic style puppets in the show.

This is Hamlet, one of their offspring and a very simple puppet, more of a sock puppet style.

This is the sheepdog sidekick of the show's host. Like the boars, I've only gotten the head finished. It's a massive rework of a costume I did for a local high school production years ago.

This is the start of the first of the more Muppety styled characters. I'm completely unfamiliar with this sort of build, so it's a real learning experience for me. This one will be a rather eccentric serpent character. He has a separate tail section as well.

These will be the first of the human characters I'm attempting, two children. So far, these are by far the most difficult for me, but I'm probably learning the most from this process.
Anyway, thanks for looking and thanks for such a great resource site as this!

very cool. I like the wild boar the best so far. Do keep us updated with progress!

Me, too! They are fabulous! And welcome, of course!

Great work! My favourites are the sheepdog and the boars. How did you do the teeth and snouts?

I'm loving Hamlet - did you build all of these?

Thanks, and yes I am building all of these. But my daughter is also building some of the puppets for the show. The boar teeth and snouts are shaped foam coated with tissue paper and a water-based flexible urethane. I prefer the urethane to latex as it has almost no odor and the material can be mixed with any acrylic paint. The snouts also have a very simple mechanism for sniffing. I have a photo of it, but I get a message that I've reached my limit for uploads? I couldn't upload any more images to my gallery.
By way of introduction, I should mention that while I'm new to this particular style of puppet-making, I have a long history of special effects make-up and character work, including a lot of animatronic puppets over the years. But working with fabric and patterns is a whole new skill set for me to learn. My wife is attempting to teach me how to use the sewing machine. Quite a comedy of errors so far.
Enjoying it all so far!

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff................ I Love the boars as well. Great job on there build and Thank You for sharing pictures with us. Keep us updated as things progress.

Absolutely love them animals and you are making good progress on the people puppets.  I would love to see the snout mech.  Shawn will be along soon to increase the up load amount. 

Glad you are here, looking forward to sharing ideas.

Julie

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff! You have some great creations there!  Can't wait to see more. Now that you have made your second post you should be able to upload more. There is a lower limit on new members till they have posted a couple times.

Thanks, Shawn. I'm a bit slow, but I can learn. Here's the boar mouth showing the simple nose wiggler. It's just made of tongue depressors (Jumbo craft sticks). A central support acts as the pivot and the "lever" is glued to the foam behind it. Embarrassingly simple, but it adds a little more action to the puppets.