Good to see you are still here. I was actually wondering this week  what you were up to. Thumbs up.

Well said, and interesting background Snail. This is something we enjoy regardless of what others think. The process in itself is fun. It is extra fun when you can actually find others of like mind, and like you, I marvel at how some groups manage to mobilize a whole heap of people and get some amazing stuff done. It has taken us 13 yrs here to get a group of 3 together.... and I tend to have a major crisis every 5 years or so, where I throw stuff out and quit... but it usually  does not last longer than a few weeks before I get itchy fingers again....and then I have to replace what I just threw out.

I am very glad to hear that you may have a job coming up (been praying for you bro...yes, true). I also wanted to encourage you to get back to the fun you had before with Patsy and Co. Whether you have an official job or not, you are on the job that God has given.

Wow! well done!  There are so many things I like about this. Excellent.

That is a very good question. I am in a similar boat at the moment. Generally we are trying to film something each week, but I am finding it hard to get through the processing of the footage generated on that filming day a week, before the next week rolls around, and it starts to pile up. The slowest part of things is rendering, especially chroma keys, as I use 'Blender' to do that. Although very capable, it can be slow, and I have very old computers, so that makes it really slow. I try to set up shots in the morning and set as many rendering as possible, up to 6 computers at a time, but it is quite tiring keeping track of what computer is doing what shot, and how far the shots have got through, and it gets really slow if the chromas need patching with animated masks. Its all good fun though. If we have noisy situations, we just bowl on ahead and replace the audio further down the track, which is not so easy, but you can still get things done. If that is too much hassle you can pre-record your audio, but that is another story. I also work on physical projects such as puppet or set construction, as the renders are ticking away, and it helps to beat computer fatigue, while getting  stuff done. Even so, there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day.

That's an interesting thought Na. I had a discussion with my daughter recently, on this topic. She is very good at reducing things to basic cartoon drawing. She's good with color too. I tend to do things too realistically in our animations, so I try to run everything past her, and she usually says I overdid it again and need to reduce it more. We had that with a sheep puppet I did recently. The first one was terrible, and the second one a bit better, after discussing what people perceive as a sheep rather than what an actual sheep looks like. A cartoon sheep actually looks nothing like a real sheep, but that is the art in the character design, knowing what people (often erroneously )interpret a character to be. And... choosing simple, reduced elements, which suggest the character, based on people's  stereotypical views of what a character should look like. I confess I am not a good character designer. It requires one to discard detail while retaining the most important minimum, which I find hard to do. I don't know what to throw away .

I have seen gluing of fabric...but mostly around the mouth area and hair and accessories, as it's quicker and easier than sewing, but it almost never lasts. I recommend sewing wherever possible, even little things like pupils on eyes. When designing, I also look for sewed methods over gluing. Another plus in sewing, is that if you do have to do repairs, it will all come apart cleanly, and go back fairly well afterwards. This weekend I actually handed over a 'repair' job. The owner had the puppet's pants fall down in the middle of a show... embarrassing for them, but instead of using safety pins, they wanted a shape rebuild. Since they were friends (and still are), I did it for them, and now I have a better shaped pattern, and am making another companion for their Character. I know a guy who used to glue around the mouth. He  lost a lot of customers through it, I think he  may  have  followed the  sewing advice as I think he still sells the  occasional puppet. I hope  your  puppet  builder  learns the lesson.  If the  puppets you  bought were  good looking enough for you to buy them in the  first place, he may  do well, if he  gets his   sewing methods sorted.

.....pensive.....

How very cool Shawn. .. you are being written into history as we speak!
    I for my part, it's similar as Na was saying about Australia... New Zealand is an isolated bunch of islands a thousand miles off the coast of Australia, so, a thousand miles even less likely to have any opportunity to train in puppetry. The only option was to mortgage your life and head to USA on a classic head to Hollywood risk... but to a Henson risk instead. So...it was self taught with many hours spent with VHS and frame advance button under the finger, watching the gold coated muppets behind the scenes, that my mother so lovingly recorded for me from TV, at sometimes ungodly hours of the night. We waited weeks sometimes for them to work their way up the programming schedule to get taped. I was so awe struck with it all, seeing cameras monitors and such, but now I know each piece of equipment. Later I worked in TV transmission, so I got to run all of that stuff. Now it is a lot simpler. I still have a copy of the  Muppets 30 years, and my favorite is Labyrinth from 1986. Practical experience was, as a kid, sculpting firewood with a knife, and attaching dowel rods with screw eyes and string, and doing short 'shows' for parents, from behind the sofa. My first contact with a 'muppet' style thing was in the South Pacific Islands when I was on a missionary ship, which had a  puppet team on-board. At the end of the trip, we were handed three puppets, and we had to quickly whip up another two, and off we went.

Definitely do post your progress on your builds!