When I was making the seagull skeleton prop recently, a google image search took me to sakurasnow’s drawing of a seagull skull, and then more generally to her lovely blog. In particular I love her beautiful curiosity cabinet designs. And I think there are some new ones on the way!  Occasionally they are available in her Etsy shop, and she is also working with them on fabric.

Eric Testroete, a 3d artist in Vancouver, made this awesome papercraft self-portrait head mask for Halloween last year. If you scroll along at his site you can see the making process. Wouldn’t it be cool to use heads like this in theatre?

I rather like these wallpaper designs from Paper Boy Wallpaper. The hand shadow puppet one comes in inverse colouring, too.

Small Wonders’ Battle of Puppets is described in a detailed review in the Your Local Guardian as ‘a quirky, inventive, beautifully styled and thoroughly likeable castle defence game’. Likewise, most reviews I have seen have been favourable. It’s certainly a cute idea to frame the game as a puppet show. I quickly lost interest in the game itself, though lets face it, I’m not particularly adept or interested in that kind of game.

I think I might have more fun with Elmo’s Monster Maker:

(Photo credit: anthonyung. Thanks for the CC licence. Click to enlarge)

This magnificent tiger puppet was one of the highlights of the recent Chinese New Year Twilight Parade celebrations in Sydney. Videos at the ABC, and on YouTube show it in action, and e_yew at Flickr has a close-up of the tiger’s head.

According to Street Corner:

The 3.5 metre tall City of Sydney float is operated by nine puppeteers and has an audio system in its belly to make it roar and purr.

Constructed from found and recycled materials, the float celebrates the Year of the Metal Tiger and is a symbol of City of Sydney’s commitment to sustainability.

The Metal Tiger was built by renowned prop maker Erth and its parts include vacuum cleaners, take-away food containers, aluminium cans, bicycle parts, grid iron and hockey guards, pool noodles, old speaker boxes, kitchenware, hub caps and motorbike components.

The float will be adorned with 100m of LED bud lighting, 90 metres of rope light, and tips the scales at approximately 300kg.

What prompted me to do both was the frustration I felt when I received an out-of-the-blue email asking my thoughts on the ‘puppetry industry, or lack thereof’, in Australia. Although in many ways I’m only on the periphery of the industry, I was aware of lots of exciting and diverse puppetry at the time, as I tried to convey. So I decided to write down publicly what I did know as links, and to track news as I saw it on Twitter.

But I should say straight up that I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing either.  At the moment I’m enjoying it, but I don’t intend to tie myself to it if my interest wanes.  Also, with many of the puppetry community here taking to FaceBook for notifications and networking, perhaps it is only a matter of time before it becomes redundant?

This suggestion of a seagull skeleton is a prop for a new play I’m working on, but I rather like it as an object for itself. It’s given me some ideas for making some stranger ones when I get some time later.

By coincidence, today I happened across Chris Jordan’s photographic collection Midway: Message form the Gyre, a photographic documentation how albatross chicks on Midway Atoll ban in the middle of the Pacific Ocean often die because they end up being fed heaps of plastic junk. It’s shocking – only look if you are feeling strong.

This face is essentially calico over foam.

The following one is foam at the moment, but I am going to try a cracked surface on it.