I know our community is mainly for the Foam Book, but I asked Vania if it might be OK to post pictures of some of my other puppets and she said I could (thanks, Vania!
). I did post a photo of one puppet I made using the Three-Piece Head method in another thread, but here are a few other of my puppet projects that I've done just for fun:
A recreation of Mr. Hat from the TV show "South Park"--I only watch the show every so often, but I do love Mr. Hat.
This is made almost completely of felt with a styrofoam ball for the head base and a posterboard tube for the hat.
I don't know if everyone might be familiar with the "Potter Puppet Pals;" someone put together minimalist puppet versions of the Harry Potter characters and has been producing web videos on the 'Net (they're pretty popular, too!). A friend of mine (who's also a puppeteer) really loves the character of Snape, so I put made her a Snape Potter Puppet Pal of her very own for Christmas. This puppet is constructed just like Mr. Hat, out of felt with a styrofoam ball for the head base.
Finally, here are a couple of pictures of a large puppet I actually built many years ago; I've gotten a lot of use out of it! This is an almost-life-size horse (well, OK, almost-life-size pony!
) that I had made for a community theatre production of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" for their Headless Horseman. I built him pretty quickly, and considering he's made of cardboard, cheap fur, and old wigs, he's done pretty well! After his run at the theater, I got him back, and put him to work with my Lord of the Rings Ringwraith costume as seen in the photos. I also with a little modification (and some advice from Vania!) turned him into a creature known as a thestral from the Harry Potter books, and have won quite a few costume contests with both of those characters. I'm hoping to rebuild the puppet to make it more realistic (and as mentioned in another thread, I'd like to work out some way I can get smoke to come out of the nose).
Another view of the Ringwraith. I used bicycle reflectors for the horse's eyes to make them glow red in flash photos.
A photo of the thestral puppet from one of the Harry Potter book release parties. In the books, the thestrals are described as being black horse-like creatures with white eyes and leather bat-wings. Vania had suggested I use black umbrellas for the wings, and I just picked up a couple from the dollar store. We laughed ourselves silly over it, and I won the Grand Prize in the costume contest at the party!
