Lola the Spider - Final Posted by Lola on Feb 26, 2013
Hey all! So, Lola (from Monica's children's book) is finished, and she should be delivered to her doorstep today! HUZZAH!
I wanted to go ahead and post pics in case anyone is interested in how she turned out...
First, here are the reference pics (posted with permission):
And here are the puppet pics :
I won't bore you with the standard stuff (here's how I made the pattern/mouthplate/etc.)
Here she is after she's been covered:
I used a wire jig to shape her hands, and then "felted" the batting into shape:
Then I did the same with the rest of the arms and the legs. Here's one of her legs, with the foot still needing some work:
The eyes are also molded and poured epoxy, amd the swivel.
The colors on my screen apparently weren't the colors from the book, so I sent Monica swatches of fabric so she could tell me which colors were closest. We went through several versions of the nose, and finally settled on this one. I think she came out cute, and Monica seems really happy with her from the pics I sent.
I wanted to go ahead and post pics in case anyone is interested in how she turned out...
First, here are the reference pics (posted with permission):
And here are the puppet pics :
I won't bore you with the standard stuff (here's how I made the pattern/mouthplate/etc.)
Here she is after she's been covered:
I used a wire jig to shape her hands, and then "felted" the batting into shape:
Then I did the same with the rest of the arms and the legs. Here's one of her legs, with the foot still needing some work:
The eyes are also molded and poured epoxy, amd the swivel.
The colors on my screen apparently weren't the colors from the book, so I sent Monica swatches of fabric so she could tell me which colors were closest. We went through several versions of the nose, and finally settled on this one. I think she came out cute, and Monica seems really happy with her from the pics I sent.
Re: Lola the Spider - Final Posted by Lola on Feb 27, 2013
Thanks so much for the compliments everyone! I am really happy with how she came out.
The author is going to be doing a book tour going around to libraries and book stores, reading her book, and using the puppet.
My thoughts approaching it were:
1) She doens't have much puppetry experience, so I
wanted to try and make the puppet as light as possible, to cut down on fatigue.
2) She's going to be around kids, so I need to make whatever they might reach out and touch pretty sturdy.
3) Chances are, she may eventually have someone else take over the puppeteering, if it becomes too hard to puppet and read at the same time.
4) She may want to take pictures of the puppet posing from the different scenes from the book
5) I can't make her look too scary, or the kids are going to freak out.
So, I chose wire for thought 1 and thought 4. Joy, the pink strip is actually a flat wire that's come out in the Jewelry department at the Michaels in the last six months.
They had this pink color in the 50% off bin after Christmas, so I grabbed some then. It's wrapped with a thin piece of batting and then the tiny green wire that I used for the hand (also from the jewelry dept.) It gives the "felting" something to grab on to.
For those not familiar with felting, here's a great video about how to start felting batting to make a basic shape: Youtube Felting Vid
Michaels carries the flat wire year round in a silver and copper color by their jewerly wire. I think it runs around $5 or so.
I had tried making an arm from cloth and batting, but it came in at about 5 oz...so I though about it for a day or so, and decided felting might be the answer. The arm came in at less than an ounce. Two birds, one stone...woot!
The nice thing about using the flat wire is that the arm can only bend forward and back, so it follows the natural curve of the arm.
On the mouthplate, I also added an extra thumb grip below the bottom plate resist, so she could change her hand position (make it wider) to give her hands a "rest" (since she has long fingers like I do). Also, having the two options will help open up the number of people who can puppet her comfortably.
I know two weeks seems like a crazy turn around time, but I may have a couple of shows coming up in the next few weeks, and I wanted to make sure she had my full attention while I worked on her, and she was done and out the door before I became distracted getting ready for the shows.
The author is going to be doing a book tour going around to libraries and book stores, reading her book, and using the puppet.
My thoughts approaching it were:
1) She doens't have much puppetry experience, so I
wanted to try and make the puppet as light as possible, to cut down on fatigue.
2) She's going to be around kids, so I need to make whatever they might reach out and touch pretty sturdy.
3) Chances are, she may eventually have someone else take over the puppeteering, if it becomes too hard to puppet and read at the same time.
4) She may want to take pictures of the puppet posing from the different scenes from the book
5) I can't make her look too scary, or the kids are going to freak out.
So, I chose wire for thought 1 and thought 4. Joy, the pink strip is actually a flat wire that's come out in the Jewelry department at the Michaels in the last six months.
They had this pink color in the 50% off bin after Christmas, so I grabbed some then. It's wrapped with a thin piece of batting and then the tiny green wire that I used for the hand (also from the jewelry dept.) It gives the "felting" something to grab on to.
For those not familiar with felting, here's a great video about how to start felting batting to make a basic shape: Youtube Felting Vid
Michaels carries the flat wire year round in a silver and copper color by their jewerly wire. I think it runs around $5 or so.
I had tried making an arm from cloth and batting, but it came in at about 5 oz...so I though about it for a day or so, and decided felting might be the answer. The arm came in at less than an ounce. Two birds, one stone...woot!
The nice thing about using the flat wire is that the arm can only bend forward and back, so it follows the natural curve of the arm.
On the mouthplate, I also added an extra thumb grip below the bottom plate resist, so she could change her hand position (make it wider) to give her hands a "rest" (since she has long fingers like I do). Also, having the two options will help open up the number of people who can puppet her comfortably.
I know two weeks seems like a crazy turn around time, but I may have a couple of shows coming up in the next few weeks, and I wanted to make sure she had my full attention while I worked on her, and she was done and out the door before I became distracted getting ready for the shows.
Re: Lola the Spider - Final Posted by cristina1984 on Mar 01, 2013
Wow! Great Puppet! Lola is awesome! Really like her expression, you chosen a great puppeter!
Kisses!!
Kisses!!
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