Hey all!

My name is Shirik and I'm a puppet newbie from the UK. Im 28 and have always held an interest in puppetry, especially influenced by movies such as The Dark Crystal (I've actually got a ferret named Fizzgig!) and Labyrinth and various Henson TV Shows (Dog City and Fraggle Rock were firm favourites in our household).

Growing up I used to often make my own puppets (I remember owning a puppet making book which had an egg box and cake box based "monster" style sock puppets) and evey time my dad had an odd sock... sock puppet time!! I had a lot of store bought puppets and used to put on shows for the younger kids on my street - ahh memories! As part of my A levels doing Health and Social Care I actually wrote a puppet show aimed at young kids about dental hygiene, in a group we made our own basic puppets and gave several performances of the show.

I am a fursuit builder and its my primary interest - I'm hoping I can transfer a lot of the methods I've learnt from fursuit building into puppetry (fingers crossed!). Right now I'm literally starting my first "proper" puppet build, basing it on the Project Puppet glorified sock puppet with a lot of heavy modification - I'll more than likely make a construction thread when I actually get properly started on him.

So yes, that's me and I look forward to talking to you all!

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff Shirik.  If you build fursuits I doubt you are going to have too many issues building puppets.  The skill set needed is pretty much the same.  Looking forward to seeing your first creation. Really nice fursuits over at Hybrid Studios site!  I have a question for you. Do you get upset if someone ask you to build them a mascot? I realize technically that they are one in the same but understand that fursuit means much more... or maybe they are not one in the same.

Hey Shirik! fellow brit here! glad to see I'm not the only late 20s male suddenly getting into puppet building! (I started last year) sounds like you have much more experience than I did when I started out and pretty much the same inspirations! whereabouts are you in the UK? I've been looking at putting together a few things with puppeteers locally but at the moment it's just me!

If you want to see my current efforts I'm on YouTube (of course) the link should be in my sig!

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff Shirik.  If you build fursuits I doubt you are going to have too many issues building puppets.  The skill set needed is pretty much the same.  Looking forward to seeing your first creation. Really nice fursuits over at Hybrid Studios site!  I have a question for you. Do you get upset if someone ask you to build them a mascot? I realize technically that they are one in the same but understand that fursuit means much more... or maybe they are not one in the same.

I honestly have no issues with people asking me for mascots or referring to my work as mascot costumes I usually actually advertise my work more as mascots rather than fursuits with the general public - I enjoy both forms of costuming (and I'm a cosplayer as well, so I get asked for that a lot too!). Fursuit is more a term used within the furry fandom as "mascot" seems a bit too mainstream for a lot of people, fursuit makes it seem a bit more personal

Hey Shirik! fellow brit here! glad to see I'm not the only late 20s male suddenly getting into puppet building! (I started last year) sounds like you have much more experience than I did when I started out and pretty much the same inspirations! whereabouts are you in the UK? I've been looking at putting together a few things with puppeteers locally but at the moment it's just me!

If you want to see my current efforts I'm on YouTube (of course) the link should be in my sig!

I'm actually a lady :P its a common mistake with my username so don't worry! I'm down in Devon, enjoying the sunshine at the moment I watched a few of your videos and I think they're great! :D I'll have to keep an eye on your channel

Thanks for the warm welcome guys <3 I actually started on "Pippa" today so I'll probably start up a thread soon. She'll be sold at auction though so despite not wanting to name her or get attached... yeah I named her and got attached already. But she'll be sold for charity so at least it will be for a good cause!

oppps embaressed face right here! apologies for the assumption defo made an ass of myself! thanks for the views (don't forget to like, comment and subscribe ;-) )

Devon is awesome! have a friend who lives down there! can't wait to see your work!

Hi Folks! Welcome Shirik! Nice to see some Brits on the site!

Hello Shirik, sorry for the massive delay in welcoming you!! i see you said that you where based in devon, well im a brit and i used to live in Plymouth (now in nottingham) where are you in rainy old devon then?? and also, im sure you could teach us all something about fursuits that we could ALL use for puppet building, so although i know you have already finished your pippa pup build, i think you may be finding this easier than most people just getting into puppet building!!