Sibling’s knitwear range for guys is fun. Their zany Scare Isle Knit Monster appears to be just for show. (via KRISATOMIC)
creatures
Kooky’s Return (Kuky se vrací)
Kooky’s Return (Kuky se vrací), a combined puppet and live action feature, has some lovely inventive puppets made by the team that produced the beautiful puzzle-solving game Machinarium.
A seven year old boy whose teddy bear Kooky has been thrown away wonders what his toy is up to in the big world out there, imagining Kooky as he tries to find his way back home. The film was written and directed by Czech Oskar winning director Jan Sverák and production design was created by Jakub Dvorský (Amanita Design). The release will be on May 20, 2010 in Czech cinemas.
There’s also a subtitled version of the trailer and a FaceBook fan page.
Handspring’s giraffe
The amazing Handspring Puppet Company‘s giraffe at Design Indaba 2010 in Cape Town recently.
Beautiful curiosity cabinet illustration
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.
Erth’s magnificent tiger puppet
(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.
Baleful
I finished the red bird creature today and started a yellow one. I keep on thinking of this look as baleful, but the dictionary definition has more of a connotation of menace than I’m reading into it.
A new creature
Not finished yet.
New adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Arrival coming to the Sydney Festival
Red Leap Theatre from New Zealand will be bringing a new theatre adaptation of Shaun Tan‘s book The Arrival to the Sydney Festival in January. I love the look of what I can see in this video of highlights, in particular the aesthetic feel and muted colours, the puppets and the imagery.
(photo credit: Robin Kerr)
(photo credit: John McDermott)
I saw the adaptation of The Arrival by Spare Parts Pupppet Theatre at the Unima 2008 Puppetry Festival in Fremantle. It has gone on to win a number of awards, and recently had a season at the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville Mezieres, France. I felt the strength of that production was in the projected animations and digital imagery, and that the story line and emotional content had been simplified for a very young audience. I hope Red Leap’s production will be able to tap further into the richness and drama that the book holds.
Previously: Shaun Tan
Apocalypse Bear
This is the first episode in a new on-line serial exploring the adventures of the enigmatic Apocalypse Bear. A stage version of Lally Katz’s Apocalypse Bear Trilogy by Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company premiered recently at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.
