Mr Weekend is a giant (4.5 metre tall) robotic sock puppet made by Michael Simi. He is fashioned over a large mechanical hand from a defunct Michigan car factory and is having some difficulty adjusting to his change of job into the art world…
(via @JudexJones)
Check out these fabulous magpie geese puppets! They were made by Erth, for the production Goose Lagoon, a new contemporary dance work by Gary Lang NT Dance Company which premiered recently at the Darwin Festival. Here are the pick of the links I could find:
Puppetrynews and then PuppetVision picked up on this advertisement for the Mayflower moving company which borrows very directly from Royal de Luxe’s little giantess street theatre spectacle. It is by no means the first to do so, as we had the Allen’s big doll commercial in Brisbane last year and there have been others that I have been tracking for some years (several pages of posts), which show Royal de Luxe has been highly influential. But the way Audrey settles in her big chair and takes a nap is particularly close to the giantess resting in her deckchair. In my opinion she doesn’t evoke the beauty and mystic that the little giantess does, but she’s not alone in that either! The makers, The Character Shop, have detailed photos of the making process.
This is a preview of The Grimstones – Mortimer Revealed , the second show in Asphyxia’s magical gothic fairytale about the Grimstone family, following on from The Grimstones – Hatched. I love the look of these marionettes, and hope to catch a performance sometime when they tour up this way. Their touring itinerary is here.
A new feature in PhotoShop called Puppet Warp will enable manipulation of an object, or parts of an image, by using an overlayed mesh and control pins.
When I mentioned the cartoon British TV show Peppa Pig a few years ago the pigs were putting on a puppet show for their parents. Now an adaptation, a live theatre show Peppa Pig’s Party, has become a roaring success for pre-schoolers.
The puppets have lovely simple lines and are very cute! Built by Paul Jomain, (known for his Virgin One mascot, Red, and the PG Tips monkey), they are ‘operated by actors who remain on stage with them, perform alongside them, and provide the voices’ in the style of the Avenue Q puppets, an aspect discussed in an interview with the puppetry consultant, Nigel Plaskitt. He also talks about the decision not to use body suit puppets; they exist, but are gross in comparison!
My thanks to Naomi at Puppets in Melbourne for her kind post about my blog and work.
(photo credit: Kompas/Ferganata Indra Riatmoka)
Indonesian master puppet maker Ki Ledjar Subroto has made colourful wayang puppets of President Obama, his family and dog, which will be given to him by his relatives when he visits Indonesia. Some of the process of making the puppets from hide is shown here.
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.
