My last post on the new puppet designs I had discussed using upcycled old document folders. After making my seahorse experiment though, I felt extremely discouraged. The materials work fine, even though there are a few kinks to still work out (and I’ll get to that in a minute), but I was stuck with something else. The designs themselves.

All images are linked to larger versions for better viewing.

See, I’ve never been any good at drawing. All my characters come from images on the net; I find an image that has the rough outline that I want and then I transform it in a free paint program from picture to pattern. My sole artistic talent when it comes to making my own drawn art are highly detailed and abstract images made up of random inkings.

My first thought was to find an illustrator whose work I liked and to work in collaboration. But I know how that goes: I would not only have to convince an artist that I would be worth working with (something other people have trouble convincing me of; see my experience with commissions), figure out how to split the money or if I give them a fee, organise it all, and lastly, create designs with them that work on a puppet level and use characters that I decide upon. Sounds like too much work to me.

Thinking on the abstract, I had seen an image on the net of someone’s books. They were all triangles in colour and white circular eyes with black pupils. It made me think maybe I could do abstract after all. They were simple characters, and very appealing for a number of reasons. Talking with Bambi, she and another arts-minded person, sounded excited by the idea; especially in light of my plans to make wall artwork for the home. Abstract art is in, they said, and being able to rearrange the pieces on the wall got them interested. (Incidentally, I showed Bambi my new seahorse and she liked the new materials. A+ on that, even though the superglued fantasy film came off. Also the girl brooch she was happy with. Nice to get good feedback from someone in marketing and arts)

I came home and set about making an abstract shadow puppet version of the girl brooch. All triangles for the body, legs and arms, and kept the round head as it was. It looked good, but it was just missing something for me. Maybe abstract isn’t right anyway: the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t see a way of selling this to other puppeteers. If my target market is puppeteers, then are they really going to be keen on using abstract designs? Sure, some will go for it, but it’s a particular look that suits very particular shows/themes. It might sell in the art world, but it wouldn’t sell (or sell more than what I’m already selling) to puppeteers.

So I come back to what? Hiring an illustrator? Unconvinced of that, I tried one more thing. I printed out a copy of the girl design I had made, and made it as it was. I liked the idea of mixing up the colours (in fact, I had tried this first on the abstract version) and used purple for the body and ‘white’ for the rest. The head and arms are connected at the same joint, and the legs are also jointed - but technically, only the arms will move because those are attached to rods. From now on, all my puppets will be two-handers only (my turtle shadow puppet is four-handed) The puppet was still missing something, and because I couldn’t be bothered thinking about glues and fantasy film and patterned papers, I decided to go with just a tiny bit of detail: a small flower on the left side of the skirt.

I discovered however there are three problems: I’m still unsure of using brads for joints, but considering my other options it’s probably what I’m stuck with. Second is that I really need a better rod attachment, the plastic bra-strap and cotton thread don’t hold up to the new ‘professional’ look. Third, I used (what I thought was) white plastic and actually it’s more like clear frost. I thought the definition of the outline would be enough, but apparently not. Next time I use actual white plastic.

I quite like this design, and it’s not one thing or another. It’s not a silhouette cut-out (quite) because it mixes the colours together; but it kind of is because it’s a straight outline with minor detail cut out. It’s not ‘realistic’ nor is it abstract, but is recognisable as a character. It’s more minimalistic than what I have before and yet still feels like it’s complex. It’s not quite Chinese or Greek shadow puppetry either, with all colour and detail. It’s sort of a fusion, and it feels like it was made by me. It has my style. (Bambi actually said to me “take what you know about shadow puppetry and use it in a different way". This is kind of how it feels to me) It bends without breaking which means you get all sorts of great movement, and you can still reverse this character with a little trickery. (See video at bottom of post) Overall I’m very pleased with it.

And this is what I like about it most of all…

One thing I remarked to Bambi about is that I don’t want to do what people think about shadow puppets. That ‘traditional‘ French style (most people think of it as Victorian silhouette, but actually it’s French). One thing I love about making puppets is taking it further than expectations. On thinking about it later, I know what it actually is. It’s not only that need to avoid what everyone else is doing - every shadow puppet seller I’ve seen does plain silhouette cut outs, in one colour only - but it’s a need to avoid “yeah but I can make that myself".

I took me a while to articulate this, but it’s pretty obvious now. I was walking past some really beautiful framed origami butterflies that were on sale at an exhibition. Despite it being precise workmanship, visually pleasing, etc. all I could think of was “yeah but I could do that myself". Puppeteers generally don’t buy puppets unless they don’t have the skills necessary themselves to make an item. Of all the comments I’ve read about puppet purchases, by far the thing that rings out the most is that a puppeteer/puppet maker will buy a puppet from someone else if:

• the puppet is from a highly sought after puppet maker (ie. Henson or someone of similar historical interest)
• the puppet is a collectible (ie. a piece of history or from their favourite show)
• the puppet is from a location or culture different from their own (ie. a Westerner buying a bunraku puppet, and the puppet is always of the ‘traditional‘ style of that place/people)
• the puppet is unique and the character extremely well made
• the puppet is commissioned for a show (solo performers tend to buy puppets, but not so much companies or groups; unless it’s muppet-types which I don’t make) because the person can’t make it themselves - add the above note about uniqueness into the mix, the style must also suit their work

I am neither historically important nor with any special work on my CV to make me noticeable; I am not particularly from an area or culture usually of interest; I don’t get commissioned (because my work isn’t ‘unique’ enough). The only thing I can offer is extremely well made puppets of great characters. - Incidentally, solving the problem of how to sell to other puppet makers also ensures I am more likely to obtain sales in non-puppetry areas, such as those interested in art, or puppets-as-toys, and so on.

Thinking on this, I came back to where I started. I can avoid using an illustrator, my character designs are interesting enough to capture attention with some improvement and a change of style. A new set of materials will appeal more to buyers anyway, so that’s taken care of. All I have to do is make sure my designs are not something people can easily create themselves: which is exactly what a puppet made out of triangles and abstraction would be. I really can’t imagine someone buying a cut up bunch of shapes joined together with brads and thinking it’s worth $20-30 when they could easily make it themselves at home.

However, the design I tried above is a bit of everything. It’s not exactly something that you would call impossible to make on your own; but the character and style is what you’re paying for, not necessarily the construction. Even if you were to reverse-engineer it, you’re still left with time/effort vs cost/quality; what you make wouldn’t necessarily be better looking/working and cheaper than what I offer.

Toward that end I have worked out my problem. I will do brooch designs much like I had planned to do but with minor alterations; magnetic shadows will occur as planned (simple white outlines); the ‘actual’ puppets will be similar to the above (killing off any additional use of materials outside of the plastic outlines, but keeping the use of multiple colours). All of the above will have characters made by me but I will attempt to create designs which are ‘inspired by’ rather than ‘realistic’ representations; they will however remain based on real things with an aim towards a science-based/educational theme for magnetics and human/animal characters for performance in order to make them as appealing as possible to as many themes as possible.

The other new thing is what I’ve decided for the ‘wall art’ or home decoration. Instead of doing framed puppets in a lightbox; instead of doing rearrangable art in abstract… I will be returning to an idea that I have been reworking for years. It’s wall art (or desk/window sill), sort of watercolour for puppetry. I’m not going to let slip much, but I hope to have a working prototype done by next week. It’s actually fairly simple to make… but totally not something people will easily be able to reconstruct. It’s something where even if people had the inclination to figure out how to do, they would not bother. And that is exactly what I’m going for.

It also harps on a third idea sitting in my head: one of atmosphere. As an artist, I’ve always been unable to feel a connection to any anthropomorphised character. I’ve always had more of an affinity for the abstract, the non-verbal (hence my experiments above) and I thought perhaps it would be better to steer clear of characters and just do atmospheric scenery. This is totally back-asswards mainly because in puppetry atmosphere and scenery can only do so much in a very short amount of time. But the idea is worth merit, and so the “for home” stuff will combine atmosphere, scenery, puppetry, art, make more complicated creations (than say, ‘just silhouettes’) using my films and patterned papers… and avoid “I can make that myself” all in one fell swoop. It’s pretty cool and what’s great is that they will be exactly as planned: one of a kind items that I can sell for a higher price and that challenge my building skills.

On the corporate side of things I’ve not had any more thoughts: but the kits are slowly but surely developing into a fantastic idea that is something I’m sure no one currently does but isn’t too outside the box. Actually, it is outside of the box, but only in a literal sense. … Wait, no it’s outside, inside and the box itself. It’ll be awesome!

Now to the video test of my shadow puppet. I ended up doing something interesting. I worked out that the polyrop I bought works as a great screen! I just got my two wooden braces and temporarily taped them to the plastic. Very handy as a replacement table-top screen.

I have finally gotten around to making a video tutorial for my free pattern ‘Long Dog’. You can find the videos (and the pattern of course!) here. I have also updated my ‘shadow puppets made easy‘ post, which I’ll be further updating as I continue the migration of content.

In other news, it’s likely that there won’t be much of an update on my new shadow puppet products for a fair bit. Since trying out various materials, I’ve come to the next step, which is to make new designs and characters. This will take me some time, especially as I will be heading in a completely different direction to what I have done before. I will be making small updates as I progress, but I don’t want to give too much away for now. … Mainly because I don’t know what I’ll be doing yet!

Well, after the weekend’s aftermath of nothing going right, I got extremely frustrated but didn’t want to give up. There were just too many other things to try in order to make my puppets ‘new and improved’. I’m not 100% sure what I’ve done since will work, but I’m confident enough in it to say: this is likely the way I will head.

Having given up on my polypropylene, I set about trying other things. By pure chance when I was testing how well polyprop glues to fabric, I discovered an interesting thing: the mod podge that I used to glue the fabric doesn’t actually stick to the plastic… but when you remove the fabric from the plastic, it (the fabric) has a nice soft sheen to it. And the fabric doesn’t fray. And there is no gluey moisture left on the plastic. Almost as if you never glued the two pieces together. This gave me an idea: I could use the plastic as a sort of silk screen, brush some glue on, ‘wallpaper’ it with fabric, wait for it to dry… and then cut out shapes from the fabric. Not too flimsy to be used for something, but still flexible enough for puppets.

Sadly, from there I haven’t had much progress. I cut out one design (as shown in the link above, only with fabric), but am not very happy with it. It looks nice and all, but the fabric is floppy enough to need a brooch backing from the top of the head, and the size of the pattern just didn’t work with the size of the backing. I’ll likely leave the idea of using fabric altogether, although don’t know how well the brooches will work with what I have actually discovered in the last few days….

This is my new prototype puppet. As you can see, I used the seahorse shadow puppet design. I’ve again used brads and masking tape for temporary attachments. (I’ve found brads to be the only thing that works; eyelets are just too stiff; string joints too breakable; wire joints too pointy-ended) Unfortunately lighting is crappy in my house today, but you get the idea. It’s purple plastic, translucent. You can’t really tell in the first image, but in the second you can see a little darker fin on the seahorse: it’s the same fantasy film that I use in the current design (see link above).

Cost to make this: about 20 cents or so. Not including labour of course. … Seriously. As you may be able to tell from the post’s title, this puppet was made mainly from upcycled things. The fantasy film was cut off from scraps from larger puppets; the brads are the only cost here. The plastic… this is roughly what I used.

I’d love to take the credit for the idea, but once again David Currell comes to the rescue. I knew there were some old document folders lying around in the house from school/uni days and I cut one up. I think I used about half of it for the A4-ish sized puppet.

The only annoying thing for me is that glues still don’t work: I resorted to super glue to attach the fantasy film. It works, and quite well, but I always worry that with a bit of time, the film will start to peel away at the edges. I’m hoping it will be ok, especially if the puppets are well taken care of. I know they’ll get a bit of wear and tear, but it’s all about getting people to remember to treat their puppets with respect (as well as fun).

As for cutting, it was a very easy job, about 30 minutes worth of work which is the norm for this particular design. I still have trouble cutting circles out of the plastic, but it was 10 times easier than with polyprop. Movement is easy enough too, although I did have to pivot the joints a number of times before I could get rid of the stiffness. I’m hoping if I implement a better joint system this will be eliminated altogether.

You can see how well the puppet works at the bottom, where I have a short video of me testing it out. (I did the video before attaching the fantasy film, so it won’t quite look like that) Not only can I get some reasonably fluid movements out of it, but the plastic is flexible enough to twist slightly; and of course, it can reverse (although not well in the video because of where I had placed one of the rods).

I’m actually pretty pleased with this, and I especially like the idea of upcycling plastic document holders. Upcycling is very big in the craft/designer markets… but also, I’ve always kind of been annoyed that I only contribute to the rubbish, as very little of what I used previously can be/was recyclable. It’s also, really cheap 

My thoughts so far is this: I don’t know what I will use for the wearable art; I’ll use this plastic in white for the magnetics, with fine details a la the mermaid; this same plastic in translucent colours for the ‘normal’ puppets, with fine details and/or small additions of patterned papers/fantasy film; for the framed puppets, I’d use only the patterned papers and/or watercolours; and likely a mix for the corporate puppets. (See previous blog entry for more info on these ideas) I’m trying as much as possible to have no more than two or three ’styles’ (ie. patterned papers vs plastic vs whatever) as I think it ends up looking messy. As they say in the restaurant biz, “it doesn’t know what it is” if you put too many ingredients in. In this way, I will have to think carefully about the designs and the way in which they will look as a collection. I’m also extremely keen to keep the more detailed designs (ie. the use of papers and/or films) because these details set my puppets apart from other shadow puppet makers. Most people do single colours or black & white, and if they do details it’s in the cut-away designs. (For which I think is rather dull actually)

I’ve also made another decision, which is to create ‘normal’ puppets soley as human or human-like characters. I think that there will be a problem with these, since they will be marketed as ‘for the performer’, but will likely attract only teachers and parents. I’m happy to sell to the latter of course, but my real aim is for the former. The problem with that is that pros want to buy something specific to their show, and they’re less likely to want generic characters that other people can buy too. Human characters will allow me to appeal to the broadest possible amount of professional puppeteers (since humans can be used in a greater number of ways/stories), whilst also appealing to the teacher/parent market, who would be more likely to buy something kids can identify with anyway. I’ll also make it clear that the designs are more along the lines of ’samples’, in the sense that if professionals want something more fitting with their show, they can commission it.

All in all, I’m fairly pleased with this prototype and think I will begin work on finding new joints and new rod attachments; and of course, figure out how to do the wearable art. I am finding myself less and less convinced of a good way to do it… it needs some thought.

On Thursday I received some goodies in the mail: two pieces of what I had hoped was my new material for making shadow puppets. Unfortunately, it’s probably not what I’m going to use. At the bottom of this post, you’ll see what I have made over the weekend, but before we get to that, a bit about what I have tried using:

I decided that I needed to ‘up’ the professionalism of my shadow puppet materials, and at first was at a loss as to what to use. Thankfully I had ordered a copy of Shadow Puppets & Shadow Play by David Currell a while back that I never got around to reading. I really should, because I discovered quite a few ideas in there that I’d never ever thought about. Mainly I was interested in learning more about using plastic, since that’s something I saw at Finders Keepers and was inspired by.

Currell’s book mentions something called ‘Plasticard’ and a quick google came up with two problems: the plastic is not called that (it’s a brand name, obviously); and it’s only available at very rare hobby shops in Australia and often not in sheet form (it’s used for model trains, and hence in different shapes). I really didn’t want to have problems finding a supplier, and even though I could find plenty of industrial suppliers of plastics, none of them had reasonable info about the item in question.

Plan B. Look for a different type of material. But what one? Taking a break in the lounge one afternoon, I picked up on something that had completely been overlooked. On a side table was sitting a gift card, an object that had been lying around for days and that I’d noticed but not really seen. Forest for the trees certainly: I started to wonder what gift cards were made out of. They were the right thickness, the right sturdiness, and would most likely be a decent substitute for Plasticard.

What I discovered is ‘polypropylene’ and fortunately for me there are heaps of Aussie suppliers around. Even better is that polyprop comes in clear, colours, and even translucent colours! It’s relatively cheap, and I found one arts/crafts store in Geelong (about an hour from Melbourne) who sells sheets in A1 sizes. Perfect!

And so on Thursday I got two sheets - one clear and one white - to do some testing with. I also bought a few bits and pieces to try out some ideas with.

Unfortunately, very little from there has been successful. I’ve since discovered that glues do not take to polyprop (one of the reasons why it’s such a well-liked material is that it can’t be glued), and only after trying several different glues and then googling did I learn that. Hot glue apparently works well, but my gun has disappeared into the morass of crap in my room. Super glue works well, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to use to back the plastic with patterned papers; but would probably use it to attach magnets or brooch pins.

The plastic itself isn’t too hard to cut, but it doesn’t like tiny details. It’s too thick to cut with a scalpel easily, and my scissors are fine… but they can’t handle corners on this plastic; my hand cut design at the size I wanted looks pretty amateurish. Any details that I’d want to do, like on my mermaid shadow puppet, I would have a hard time doing even if I increased the size of the puppet. I could try and find someone to cut the pieces for me, at which point I’m either no longer making 50% of the puppet, or there is no redundancy built in if the person went away/had problems/whatever.

Joining the pieces was a nightmare. I had this brilliant idea of using grommets (or eyelets, like what you use for holes on belts or corsets) for joints but discovered that using eyelet pliers squashes the eyelet before it can go halfway through the plastic; and the hammering method would only make a dent in my desk. I thought maybe I could try using snap buttons as a weird new joint, but the button part was too short to go through two pieces of plastic. I settled on brads just so I could see if I could get even one example product finished. Brads aren’t ideal for kids, so I still need a better solution.

I had a look at Etsy and what kind of plastic brooches were available. A few were a bit handmade looking, so I thought maybe I could get away with my cutting job. But honestly, I’m so frustrated with the way the plastic works that it’s hard to see how this would work on a large production scale. Part of the reason I like shadow puppets is that they’re quick and easy to make. And although I’ve not been ‘making’ but been ‘testing’ instead, my ideal materials are ones you don’t have to force into obeyance. I like the cheapness of the polyprop - I could get several large puppets out of a $10 sheet - and even the look of it… but in order to do what I want to do, I’m not entirely sure that plastic is for me.

Here’s what I ended up with after two days of fiddling: an example brooch. The design is the ’signature’ for the new collection (yeah, that’s what I’m calling it now), a girl. There is a boy version too, but I only tried to make the girl. The idea with the brooches is to change the design on whim, and so the girl can be seen as a whole figure; or you can ‘knock her head off’ . The hope was to have a hidden message/image revealed when you move the head. I was trying to test it by having my name appear (like a cute little name tag) but as I discovered above, doing lettering like that was impossible. The brooch is also 50% bigger than intended because I was trying to work out at what size lettering would work. I would never wear something this big, so it’s unlikely that the design will end up like this anyway. Especially since my intention wasn’t to use white, but to have coloured or patterned designs for the brooches… but of course, that means finding my glue gun. Or I could scrap using my lovely patterned papers (which are expensive, but I like the look of) and just use single colour translucent plastics and piece them together to create a coloured design (making for less intricate designs in themselves, and I’d rather the patterned papers. Although the minimalist in me is thinking that maybe I could pare back on the designs).

At the end of last night, I was so frustrated with how the brooch was turning out that I decided I needed to do a proper shadow puppet design to see if my concerns also held out for the fluidity of movement. (This took me one hour to cut and join) One thing I noticed in trying out the different joints is that the plastic doesn’t move as smoothly as the laminated versions I have made in the past. My fears were not allayed: this dragon puppet, based on my latest design which died at Finders Keepers (see above), just doesn’t move properly. The pieces get stuck in the middle, and whilst I could coax a rough figure eight movement out of it, the plastic simply isn’t good enough to have decent fluidity. (Ignoring the fact the rods are temporarily taped on, they are at least in the correct position for proper movement)

Somehow I have to find a balance between ‘designer art’ and ‘functional puppet’, and polypropylene just isn’t it. … I think I’ll be trying out acetate next. Although I already have severe doubts about that one too.