Paul needs help!

[punkNpuppets]

well, to put my puppet building skills into 2 words - "i suck"...im only good at making animal puppets. and there are some sesame street characters i need help on.

u know how i was talking about a Muppet Show or Sesame Street version of Clerks? well i plan on recording a trailer (same as the clerks trailer, but with sesame street characters). Ernie will be Randal, Bert will be Dante, the fat blue AM will be saying "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S NO ICE??? YOU MEAN I GOTTA DRINK THIS COFFEE HOT???" and "Hey you open?", and Prairie Dawn will be Veronica (ill also have elmo saying "do you have that movie with that guy..." and kermit will be saying "what kind of convenient store do you run here?" but i have store bought puppets of them. ANYHOO. i need help on making bert, ernie, fat blue, and prairie dawn. how do i make a sphere-head with thin foam? and ernie and bert heads?

thanx

and i just wish jay and silent bob were in that trailer for more than 2 seconds, biff and sully would fit them perfectly.

 

[scarylarrywolf]

As usual, check this out:

http://www.bear-town.com/backstage_pages/tumbles_pg1.htm

 

[punkNpuppets]

thanx dude

 

[robinthecrow]

Not entirely related to the puppets you mention but here are two pictures of Rick Lyon with a naked Rod! and the puppet cast of "Avenue Q" (I think these are posable puppets rather than the performing puppets) - I hope these give you an idea of how the heads are made... well the first picture anyway... I included the second one because I think Rick is hitting on Lucy! ;-)

Found these on the "Avenue Q" forums btw...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/maxwood/avenueq/10401_512.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/maxwood/avenueq/10402_512.jpg

David.

 

[punkNpuppets]

there's a technique i thought of that worked alright, although it was better in theory. i call it the "basketball technique". what i did was i cut out 8 wedges in the shape of the wedges on a basketball. and then i glued it together and it looked like a foam basketball. it wasnt very round though, i dont know if its the foam im using or what. i remember the lady at johann's fabrics saying that i should get the thin green foam as opposed to the yellow foam. does anybody beg to differ?

 

[Buck-Beaver]

What you're describing is "the wedge method" which I use for most of my puppets. You should use foam that is either 3/4" or 1" thick. The real key is to make sure every wedge is cut exactly the same size with the edges cut straight up and down and not on angle. You can hot glue the wedges together but it doesn't work as well as contact cement. The contact cement must be spread evenly over the edges you're gluing and "pinched" very, very carefully. It takes a lot of practice to get right.

If you haven't already, check out the link that Scary Larry posted above - I describe this process in more detail there.

 

[scarylarrywolf]

I think the foam thickness actually depends on preference. You can get more detailed shapes out of 1/2" foam (which is why I vote for that), but the other stuff is thicker and will hold shape a bit better.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Yeah, deciding on foam thickness really depends on what you're making. For example, 1/2" foam works really well for fingers, ears and that sort of thing (although you might use 1" foam for very, very fat fingers or ears). You have to look at what the requirements for what you're making are - how does it have move, look, feel - and then figure out what to use based on that.

 

[punkNpuppets]

i was at johann fabrics yesterday and i asked the lady (who knows me as the kid who wears all black and goes in and buys foam)...and she told me that the difference between the green foam and the white foam is the density.

 

[punkNpuppets]

oh and they only had enough 1/2 inch thick foam to make about 1 head (and i need like 4 bodies) so i got 4 pieces of 1 inch thick foam. do u guys think 1 inch foam would work for bodies?