Community Discussions
Explore the latest discussions and community conversations related to this domain.
What inspired you to get into puppetry? And why?
Main Post: What inspired you to get into puppetry? And why?
Top Comment: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.specifically, the making of documentary. I had been familiar with Jim Henson co’s “serious” creature shop stuff from watching The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and The Storyteller on DVD as a kid. They were some of my favourites. Though, back then I mostly just saw puppets as a neat special effect and that was about it. It wasn’t until after watching Age of Resistance I also watched the Behind the Scenes documentary The Crystal Calls. I can’t explain fully how or why, but watching the way the puppeteers explained how the puppets worked, watching them come to life as the line between the puppeteer and puppet melted away and getting the feeling that puppet was a real, tangible, sentient being. That’s when it just... clicked. Just like that, it finally dawned on me; Puppetry is a medium. An artistic medium like live action or animation. One that has the potential to express themes, explore worlds and characters, and tell stories through ways live actors or even animation cannot replicate entirely. I haven’t had much experience with pure puppetry thus far, just one short film with rod shadow puppets, but I really do want to do more with the medium in film. I feel like the art form of pure puppetry/all puppet casts has so much unexplored potential in the medium of film I’d really want to play around with...
Any advice for an amateur puppet designer?
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I’m in a technical theatre class at my high school and one of our projects is to do a technical piece for a competition in our state. I decided to do a puppet design of Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid since that’s the show my school is doing for our spring musical.
I’ve been working hard getting presentable material together while I’m waiting for the materials to come in to start building the puppet. Currently I have a binder with with inspirations, two digital renderings of the puppet, lists of materials (and alternate materials), notes explaining uses of each material, and QR Code links to materials bought and references used. When I build the puppet I also plan to include progress pictures. I will be creating a trifold board as well.
Any tips on how to build the puppet or on what else to include in the binder or on the trifold? I want it to be as impressive as possible to the judges.
I’ve included my renderings, I can answer any questions about my thought process regarding design. Please keep in mind that this is my first ever puppet, so be nice.
Top Comment: I think you would get much more lifelike movement and stage freedom from making an eel puppet with a flexible spine and two points of control rather than a wearable.
Looking for good quality inexpensive puppets
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I’m getting some puppets to use for kids shows. I’m looking for inexpensive quality people puppets that I can use and same for animal puppets. Any good recommendations? My max price is $100.
Top Comment: Need more context, if the whole budget is $100 I recommend making charming sock puppets and the like. If it’s $100 per puppet then obviously more options are there and Etsy and Amazon have plenty of basic human puppets for $50 - $100. Honestly creativity will be your best bet here, you can do amazing silhouette paper puppet shows but obviously the vibe won’t be the same. What kind of puppets are you thinking of? Silhouette, marionette, hand, finger, muppet?
What are your thoughts on Puppet? It seems pretty divisive among the fan base
Main Post: What are your thoughts on Puppet? It seems pretty divisive among the fan base
Top Comment: Tbh honest I'm a biased meat head that likes everything off of this album .
What is the best way to learn as much Puppet as possible within a week?
Main Post: What is the best way to learn as much Puppet as possible within a week?
Top Comment: Unless they think you're a puppet guy, honestly you'll have time. Every Puppet shop I've been in figuring out the puppet repo has taken a LOT longer than learning puppet.