I was surfing the net, trying to find some revolutionary techniques or inspiration for how I can make my puppets better, when I stumbled across an old puppet forum I’d joined back in 2006 when I started making puppets. To my surprise, there were some old photos I had posted up of my first puppets!
When I first started out, I had no idea how to make a puppet, or what to make it from, nor even how to make look nice. Understandably then, out of my inexperience and impatience, my early puppets looked… different.
Anyway a short while later I’d found Project Puppet, and with some patterns and good instructions, my characters were looking more like what I had in my head. It’s neat to see how the design and quality has changed over the years, and how now I’m making puppets that look like what was in my head – well, for the most part anyways… there’s always that shoe that drops…
Here’s a visual timeline:
Frank, the first puppet. Bigger than my head, he was basically a ... disembodied head.
I don't remember what this dog's name was, but he was the second or the third puppet, and was later "put down" if you know what I mean...
This was Goober, my first "full body" puppet, meaning a puppet with a torso. Notice the pom-poms instead of feet...
Then I discovered Project Puppet's patterns...
And I got a little more ambitious...
And then I got even MORE ambitious...
Fast forward a few years and I'm making puppets on my own now, except they're looking much more like what I had in my head, and they're a quality I feel pretty happy with!
Love it!
I owe it largely to you!