My Puppet Experiment

[ToasterBoy]

I'm making a puppet of my Girlfriend's Dog to give to her (my girlfriend, not the dog) for Christmas. I just basically completed the head last night (still some work to do in the eyebrow area, but it's close).

I now humbly submit the pictures here to you for your pleasure!


Rock On!

Grant



Murph Puppet Front Of Head

Murph Puppet Side Of Head

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Looks cool. I wanna see it when you get the fur and stuff applied!

FOZ

 

[ToasterBoy]

Thanks and Ooops

Thanks for the comments Foz.

I realized I copied the same picture twice up there, so here's the other picture:

Murph Puppet Side Of Head

Thanks!

Grant

 

[punkNpuppets]

for a moment there i was gonna say 'holy sh-- thats the biggest puppet i've ever seen in my life'...but i was lookin at the pic wrongly

 

[ToasterBoy]

More Pics

Work is progressing. It's taking a little longer than I would have like, but if I can get it all wrapped up by Monday night, I'll be golden.

The fur on the front ogf the head has been added. Nose has been glued on. Tomorrow, Back of head and neck covered with fur and ears and eyes attatched. Then head should be done save for some trimming.

Then work on the bodybegins, but that shouldn't take TOO long, It's a simple round body and arms.

Anyway, here's some pics:

http://members.aol.com/grant2395/MurphFurSide.JPG

http://members.aol.com/grant2395/MurphFurFront.JPG

http://members.aol.com/grant2395/MurphFurEyes.JPG

It's going better than I expected for my very first, involved , puppet and dealing with all this pain in the ***** long fur is a good learning experience.

Let me know what you think!

Grant

 

[Fozzie Bear]

LOOKS GREAT!!

EYES: What I always do first is get the head totally completed, then I get the eyes ready. I DO NOT "pupil" the eyes until after they are placed on the head. Then, I look straight at the puppet to see what his focal point will be, and I place the pupils on the eyes at that time.

This is kind of using the "magic triangle" method where the pupils and nose kind of all line up where the puppet has a point of view and doesn't look up in the air, or too far to the side or down.

Croaker (KSY) had an eye problem to me. Seems like he was always looking too far UP. That bothered me.

The puppet looks SUPER COOL!!

FOZ

 

[ToasterBoy]

Foz...

Thanks for the eye tip. I really just put those on as a test. The pupils are REALLY uneven and painted poorly, so work will have to be done on them. I shall try your placement then pain tip. My problem is I'm having trouble getting the circles even. We'll see what happens today!

This puppet is not turning out 100% like I had envisioned. I think it's going to look okay, but it's not what was in my mind's eye. I just have to keep telling myself, "It's my first."

Hopefully I can get it all wrapped up before Monday night.

I'll keep posting pictures as long as people are interested!

Grant

 

[pdbooch]

Eye Pupils

Hey Toasterboy,
awsome job so far!

Here's a tip for the pupils. Go to a craft store or craft dept. of a store and find those circular felt stickers that go on the bottom of table lamps. They come as precut perfect circles, but they might be green, so you'll have to color them some how. But they're just like stickers and they're a perfect round shape.
Hope that tip is clear enough for you.

Also, what are you using for the fur? I've never seen that type of fur before. Really wicked!

PDBOOCH

 

[ToasterBoy]

The Fur

Thanks for the further eye tips!

The Fur...now there's a story.

The dog I'm patternining this after is a Pomeranian (I know, it's gone horribly wrong and no longer looks like a pomeranion, but that was my starting point). I knew I was fgoing to have to use long fur for it. Well I looked EVERYWHERE for it. Michaels, JoAnne Fabrics, Wal-Mart. Small fabric stores that service the movie and TV industry in Burbank. I would have even been happy with white fur the same length and then tried to DYE it. But I could not find it.

At Thanksgiving I came up here to N. CA to visit the Family and everyone told me to go to a place in union square in San Francisco called BRITEX (I believe that is the name). So I drive down there, fight the crowds, pay for parking and go into this place. This place is HUGE! It's completely ubelievable. Four Floors of fabric. I show one of the guys a picture of the dog and hesays Third Floor, they have all the fur up there. So I go up and show the woman the picture and she says they don't have that color. So I say, "Do you have white fur I could dye?" She says sure and takes out this bolt of perfect fur. I tell her I need a half a yard and she says, "Okay that's $140!!"

I freaked out! I asked if it was REAL hair. She said no. They had this really bright neon green cheapie fur and I said, no I need white fur like this and she said they were all out, but when they did have it, it was $24 per 1/2 yard. That still seemed way too much. So I thanked her and said I'd go elsewhere.

I was at a loss. I had no idea where I was going to find this type of fur. Then it hit me! Where does one go in this fay and age to find ANYTHING your little heart desires? EBAY!

I typed "Fur Fabric" into eBay and came up with a ton of results including the perfect "fox" colered fur I was looking for! Best part about it? 1/2 yard, BUY IT NOW price....$7!

And that's how I found the perfect fur for this puppet and saved Christmas.

God Bless eBay!

Grant

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I'm glad pdbooch told you about the felt stickers, I was on my way back here to make mention of that. You can also buy circle stencils at an art store for different sized circles, draw them on the eye and then paint it in. Of course, the stickers work best (and I'm still painting on my pupils, go figure).

Also glad you made note of EBay for fur fabric. I got some REALLY good fur prices on there in the past.

Don't worry, if this is your first puppet, it looks superb! My first Muley puppet was kind of okay, but EW! compared to my abilities now as opposed to then...it's junk.

Keep up the good work!

FOZ