Puppet Project 1

So, I’ve been working on a secret puppet project for a long while now. I want to have puppets of the Monster Commute gang. (Beastio, Chadworth, and Kip Cupwhistle.)

Heck, I’ve been wanting to do it for years, but never had the confidence to build rod-puppets myself.

I’ve been making some gains here and there, and I figured that I’d best share a photo or two with you – in-progress.

I admit, I really suck at progress reports. Basically, I just like to dig in and get stuff done… making time to take photos along the way just slows down what is already a slow process. So, I don’t take many photos. Heck, this is pretty much it, but I might as well share.

This grid photo was really the first step in the process. A couple of years ago, I found this acrylic dome for a Chadworth puppet, which I’ve been saving ever since. The challenge then is to get everything else scaled around this unyielding item. The best thing to do is to photograph it, and compare the illustrated characters with the physical objects. Then, I could print out the characters to scale, and sculpt around that. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

Of course I don’t have any progress photography on this… but trust me when I say that I started off with a block of styro, and shaped it down from there. I have a wire foam cutter, so that was a big help. But really, this was all about the sanding. Sanding, sanding, SANDING!

I’d tried to sculpt Chad’s head out of super-sculpy before, but that just didn’t work for me. I had to figure out that I’m a subtractive sculptor more than anything else. I have to dig away and try to find the character in the block-o-chunk.

In truth, I never really figured that I could do this at all. I spent a couple of years trying to find someone to take on the task for me, but it never worked out. Really, how could I ask someone to make the hard choices that I’d have to make? It just isn’t reasonable, at least without a big bucket of money.

Next time, I’ll show you a bit more how these guys have progressed. (And they have!) Looking back, these photos were uploaded to my computer in January 2011.

Man, is this a slow process.

- Daniel

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