Puppetry

I've recently been working on making some unusual puppets. Kind of more like kinetic sculptures really. They have simple faces and novel, hand-built mechanisms giving them strange, fluid movements. The puppet above has a head mounted on a spring, and wires attached. These lead to plastic rings which you put around your fingers. Pulling these tilts and turns the head in a very creepy, lifelike manner. It's great fun experimenting with this kind of puppetry.

I've also been very busy making dragons, to sell in a local shop. It's a shell shop, buy the sea, and sells unusual shells and jewellry. I have a display in the window, with little dragons coming out of shells.

The Alchemist gothic/steampunky puppet

This is a one-handed puppet called 'The alchemist'. He's a kind of creepy gothic, steampunky mad scientist, loosely inspired by the creepy characters from 'The City of Lost Children'. He is made from junk, and is operated using one hand. You can make him walk using a bobbing motion, and I'll try to get some videos up of him in action!

Crow puppet

I've always loved the idea of bringing my art dolls to life by making puppets. I've made a few already with varied success. I've been toying with marionettes, rod puppets and a variety of different stringed puppets. The problem is that it's really a case of the simpler the better.

If you make a beautiful puppet, of a fairy for example, with clothing, hair, wings etc. chances are the movements won't be lifelike and the strings will get tangled. I also like to incorporate recycled items into my puppets as much as possible, which can hinder the freedom of movement depending on what I use. I guess the key is finding a balance between freedom of movement and the beauty of the puppet.

Some of the most beautiful puppets I have seen are simple and elegant. The movement can often say more than the detail and features of the puppet. Check out this site for example: http://www.figurentheater-wildevogel.de/

I especially love the Gandalf puppet from the hobbit. They don't seem to be restrained by proportions or details, using a combination of puppets, masks and real actors for a surreal but amazing performance.

Anyway, that gets me round to my latest puppet, a crow. I've just started to paint the head:

I still havn't figured out the actual  animation technique. I'll hopefully post some more of my finished puppets in the next few days.