make

Penguin masks and earth hour

penguin masks

These penguin masks, being worn outside the UN Framework of Climate Change Conference in Bali last November, interested me because I liked the way the coarse gauze was so effective, while not hiding the faces. The photo is taken from our newspaper at the time, via Associated Press.

I’ve always thought a cool way of making a penguin character would be to have a head mask, but then wear a tuxedo as the rest of the costume, letting people make the penguin suit connection themselves. However no-one has ever taken me up on the suggestion!

We turned our lights off for Earth Hour tonight. It was a beautiful clear starry night.

Purse frame bags

Purse frame bags

These two bags are theatre props I made yesterday. They still need some handles and some special things happening inside them, but I am pleased with how they are coming on. There is some relief, too, as I had intended to buy a couple of bags and modify them, but couldn’t find any that were right. I also had trouble finding the purse frames here in Canberra. I resent the fact that most craft shops here now just have scrapbooking supplies.

I hadn’t made bags like this before, but looked up patterns online, and I am indebted to u-handbag for her purse frame demystified tutorial. Isn’t the web great?

Do you dare to eat a peach?

peach sculpture

There’s a giant peach sculpture in Sydney at the moment; it’s really an advertisement for Ella Bache skin products. They are real peaches, but only skin deep, being supported by a steel armature and polystyrene, as you can see from the short making of video. I wonder what kind of glue sticks peaches and if they had to use industrial strength botox to preserve them? After all it looks as if the peaches were attached before the piece was moved into place. LPlater saw the peaches being spray-painted and touched up after a week. I’m not sure whether to think that ironic or true to the nature of the advertiser’s business. Both probably. Has anyone or any creature taken a nibble? It doesn’t look like it. All very bizarre.

peach sculpture

A little heffalump

Elephant

I’m starting to get fond of the little elephant that I have been making over the last few days. That’s always a good sign.

Elephant

He can do tricks! And now has cool trunk to look down modestly while trying to pretend he isn’t a Brave and Clever Elephant.

Elephant

I have to set him aside to finish in March now, as I have to move on a couple of other projects that are vying for my time.

Warhorse: in pictures

warhorse

Warhorse, showing at the National Theatre in London, has some absolutely stunning life-size horse puppets, designed and made by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler from the South African Handspring Puppet Company.

Made of cane and gauze, plywood and bicycle brake-cable, nylon cord and leather, they are moved from the inside by actors, who can clearly be seen through the horses’ skeletal bamboo frames; another human steers the head, so that the steeds nuzzle, twitch their ears, shiver with fear, rear in fright, roll their lustrous eyes; they also neigh and snicker. The actors are the inner lives of the beasts: when one horse dies, sinking to its knees and then lying, as a silvery grey skeleton, on its side, you see the puppeteers rolling out of the frame as if they were a band of souls leaving a body. After battle, the stage is covered in emptied carcasses, like dressmakers’ dummies. – Suzannah Clapp, review in The Guardian

The Guardian also has a gallery of images that tell the story, as well as providing the best photographs of the puppets that I have come across. Of course, much of the magic is in their movement: there is a glimpse of that in this ‘what the audience thinks’ video.

There are some other reviews at The Independent, Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the London Theatre Guide.

(via Puppetry News)

Previously:

Animalia becomes animated

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Graham Base’s 1986 alphabet book Animalia has been turned into an CG-animated TV series which is premiering today at midday on the Ten network in Australia, and simultaneously on BBC1 and CBBC in the UK, PBS Kids in the US and CBC in Canada. There are 40 half-hour epidodes, and you can see a trailer here. It’s made in Australia, mostly at Photon VFX.

Remember how we scoured each drawing for the small boy hidden in the page? He has been developed into a main character, Alex, who along with a friend, Zoe, get conjured into the magical world of Animalia. It sounds promising – I just hope I remember to watch it!

Here are some links that interested me:

Hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent

wer</a>ewolf

Missmonster at Instructables details how she made her fabulous, scary and very furry werewolf costume. This photo is pre-fur!

(via Puppetbuilding.com)

DIY Jabba the Hutt

A thread on Star Wars Crafts documents the making of a cool giant Jabba the Hutt parade puppet. This photo is from about midway through the process, before it is skinned. It’s made from all kinds of things that I am very familiar with working with – mattress foam, irrigation pipe, tons of hot glue, spray adhesive, stretchy fabric and so on! And it has a suitably gross tongue, seen in action here. (It reminds me of the Big Heads.)

If you are interested in the making of the original Jabba, follow the links in this post at PuppetVision.

(via Boing Boing)