We were asked to make a portrait-puppet of sorts. She wanted the character to look like her, if she were a Muppet.
This puppet is an example of a mashup of two of our new puppet styles. Mary's head is exemplary of our round, "Deluxe-Style" head. Her body is similar to how our "Simple-Style" puppet bodies will be. The hands were mittens by request.
Here's a bit of her in action:
We had been considering offering portrait-puppets like this for a while. This this request was a bit different than what we had expected however, in that Mary had basically done the hard part for us.
As eager as we were to try our hand at puppet-izing someone, she knew exactly what she wanted, and had designs ready for us.
We absolutely love it when we get design drawings.
That made our job of finalizing the character design really easy. There wasn't much for us to do other than be sure the shapes and proportions were right.
Two chef characters with some sort of cooking show. One would be the old, wise, master chef, and the other would be a bumbling apprentice that despite their enthusiasm, can't seem to get things right.
After thinking it over for a bit, I realized that it would play out much like a combination between a Muppet-Labs and Swedish Chef sketch.
At first I was a bit disappointed in my apparent lack of originality. The more I thought about it though, I thought it sounded like a whole lot of fun anyway.
Thinking about it now, I think it might be fun to work in a little bit of Mythbusters, as well, since Adam and Jamie's personalities fit so well into the dynamic of these characters.
Years ago (high school), I had the idea to create a video series with some puppet characters.
I liked the idea, and always wanted to do something with puppets.
There were a few impediments preventing me from doing this, though.
First and foremost: I didn't have any puppets. I had no idea where I could find one that didn't look like a toy, and I didn't know the first thing about making them myself.
The short version of the story: I still haven't gotten to that video series, but I managed to teach myself the ins-and-outs of puppet building.
As I was learning how to put puppet characters together, I ended up making a few characters for friends and family. One thing lead to another, and I began offering my services selling custom puppets, which is why you're seeing this webpage right now.
I built a cast, then life hit me hard (college will do that), and I wasn't able to pursue video-making much. I did make the occasional test here and there, though.
Such as this "gem" before all the characters were finished:
I started on a character that was perhaps a bit more ambitious than I should have attempted as a beginner.
I worked with materials that I could find, and made sure to save my patterns, in case I stumbled backwards into any "happy accidents" that I wouldn't be able to replicate later.
All things considered, this character turned out pretty good for a first attempt. I've considered going back and giving it real eyes and teeth.
You can see it here, with a few of my other, very primitive early puppets:
I had even made plans for some more elaborate characters:
And eventually, I amassed enough of a "cast" to put some sort of videos together.
But, like I said, life got in the way of that goal. School demands attention, you know.
Around this time, I also made an attempt to sell some puppets, too, since I'd just learned a pretty interesting skill.
For a hobby-level, I did pretty well with that.
Which, eventually resulted in the webpage you are now reading, and the armfuls of puppets that we've built for people.
And, if you'reinterested, you can have a custom puppet from us.
Have a look at our custom information, and order form here.
