I’ll explain the name at a later date, but ‘Pamela’ is the signature shadow puppet character I’ve been working on for the past several months. I’ve completed the final prototype, which you can see in the Flickr sideshow to left, and the video at the bottom of the post.

Not much is different from previous incarnations of the prototype, except for:

Size. The original tests were about A5, this final one is 60cm. I may upsize even further if I can find appropriately priced sheets of plastic (I’m currently usig document folders, not polyprop, which I tried previously). This satisfies one of my aims of making new puppets; to go big enough to suit professional performance. Previous puppets are only A4 in size.

Location of rods. In upscaling, I discovered that the hollow head, which is top heavy, sags. I removed one rod from the stage-left arm, and added it to the top of the head. However, I discovered that this affected the range of movement possible by the arms, and so instead of two arm pieces, they will now be connected together. This reduces the amount of movement only slightly.

Rod attachment. I had every intention of creating a new, better form of rod attachment, to improve durability. I have spent months thinking and testing, and I have not come up with anything more suitable. I’m still not 100% convinced that making a slit in plastic and threading elastic through (see pics for a close-up) will be durable enough; but until I am informed otherwise, I will assume it is.

The video below is not the most wonderful thing in the world. I had not wanted to go to the large trouble of setting up my screen properly, and did what every parent on the net does with a shadow puppet screen; attaches it either side of a doorway. I now know why this is not preferred by professionals; it’s not taut enough to allow proper fluid movement of the puppet. Any issues that you think there are with the puppet build from watching the video - I assure you it’s all down to bad screens and bad placement of light. (I also only did one take due to the unfortunate idiocy of me not removing some pins from the screen and sticking my palm right through one of them. I’m alright, but it hurt like at the time)

Anyway, as you can see from the video, the puppet is entirely reversible, and if you make it to the end, you’ll see that I discovered that the puppet can ‘walk’ - basically swinging the puppet from side to side will do it for you. I’m pleased with this prototype - enough now that I can move on totally from prototypes and start on making the full gamut of new puppets. It may take some time though, as I’m going to overhaul my workspace first. I hope to have some new ones available early next year.